Many people may not think of restaurants and food service jobs as dangerous, but if you’ve actually worked in a restaurant, you know they’re mistaken. Injuries happen often, and they can make a huge impact on workers’ lives. The Peru restaurant worker accident lawyers at Schweickert Ganassin Krzak Rundio, LLP know how to fight for your legal rights if you were hurt on the job.
Common Types of Injuries in Restaurants
Especially during the lunch or dinner rush, a restaurant is a busy and sometimes chaotic place where injuries can happen frequently. Here are a few work accident scenarios we’ve seen in our practice representing injured restaurant workers:
Kitchen injuries: A professional kitchen can be a dangerous place due to the fast pace of work and presence of multiple hazards. Employees may sustain cuts or burns, or they may slip and fall on spilled liquids.
Server injuries: Spills are quite common in restaurants, and navigating a crowded dining room on foot can be challenging, especially if it’s dark. That means slip and falls and trip and falls are a constant hazard for servers.
Broken dishes: Broken glass is a hazard whether you’re working at the bar, in the dining room or in the kitchen. Restaurants need proper protocols in place to avoid breaking dishes and safely dispose of broken glass.
Lifting injuries: Employees may sustain sprains, strains and other injuries while taking out the garbage or moving large amounts of ingredients or dishes.
Workplace violence: We’ve all heard the horror stories about irate customers in restaurants. Usually, those situations don’t escalate to the point of physical violence, but when they do, employees can get seriously hurt.
Our Attorneys Know How to Navigate Complex Workers’ Compensation Cases
If you were hurt on the job in a restaurant, you should get workers’ comp. This is true regardless of age, job title or duration of employment. Injury doesn’t discriminate. We represent restaurant workers ranging from teenagers working their first jobs to 30-year industry veterans.
There’s often confusion about restaurant injuries, which your employer or their insurance company may use to their advantage to try to get out of paying you workers’ comp. They may dispute the extent of an injury or claim you had a pre-existing condition. We know how to investigate what happened and find the evidence that proves you were hurt on the job.
We also know how to advocate for the full amount of compensation you deserve, including all of your medical expenses, as well as two-thirds of your average weekly wage while you’re out of work. The wage loss portion can be especially tricky for servers who work for tips. Tips and workers’ comp are a complex combination, and employers and insurance company use that confusion to their advantage. When we represent tipped workers, we build a strong case to make sure you get the full amount of compensation you deserve for your lost income, not just your base pay.
If you’re hurt on the job in a restaurant in Illinois, you need to do three things right away: report the injury to your supervisor, get medical help, and contact us. Our restaurant accident attorneys will fight for the compensation you need while you focus on getting better. There’s no need to worry about whether you can afford a lawyer. We work on a contingency fee basis, which means you don’t pay us a cent out of pocket – we only get paid if and when we recover for you. Schedule your free consultation today.
