FOX16 News obtained surveillance video of the attack at a McDonald’s on Rodney Parham that left an employee with multiple gunshot wounds. The August 2008 video shows a man wearing a white shirt hitting a woman. Seconds later, an employee runs in to break it up and the attacker is forced outside. Off camera, the employee was shot three times. He walks back inside and then collapses before medical attention arrives.
Six days after the attack, LRPD detectives arrested Perry Kennon, 27, charging him with shooting Nigel Haskett. After three surgeries, $300,000 in medical bills and six months recovery, Haskett filed a workers compensation claim for his injuries. Claims specialist Misty Thompson with insurance company Ramsey, Krug, Farrell and Lensing responded, denying Haskett’s claim. “We’ve denied this claim in its entirety, it’s our opinion that Mr. Haskett’s injuries did not arise out of or within the course of his employment,” a portion of the statement reads.
Philip Wilson is Haskett’s attorney. He says the defense from McDonald’s insurer is baffling.
“Seems like any employer would want a disturbance stopped and that’s what this young man was simply trying to do,” Wilson says. As part of the denial, the insurer included a page that details expectations of employees during orientation. In a robbery situation it tells employees not to do anything that would put themselves or anyone else in danger. Wilson asserts that clause does not apply in this incident.
Yeah, that seems fair.
it was reported by Fox News. I have learned on this blog to not believe anything from Fox nees. Probably never happened.
He should not have gotten involved. They shouldn’t pay him anything.
Sounds like the attacker was forced outside and the lady remained inside. Why did the employee follow the attacker, who had a gun, outside? Once the attack was halted, the employee’s “duty” as a caring human being was met. Once he stepped outside to pursue an armed suspect, he put himself in an indefensible position. I think the insurance company is correct from a business standpoint. I also think it is up to McDonald’s to step up and absorb the health-care costs of this employee — and then fire him. 🙂
If it is not covered under workers comp, he can always file a personal injury lawsuit against his employer. That is probably the case here.
“Um, The company that made the call as most posters have noted is the insurance company.”
The insurance company adjusters are required to make the initial acceptance or denial decision based on the what is in the WC law of the satate. Should an injured worker not agree with this he or she may, at no cost and without even needing a lawyer have the decision examined by the State WC commission.
I’ll give you a real world example of a State W/C board decision.
Inside sales person:
Company policies in place.
A) Employees are prohibited from bringing any knives to work, including pocket knives.
B) Employees are provided all office supplies, pens, computers, paper, etc.
Salesman sitting at desk and his click ball point pen gets jammed. (Boxes full of pens is 10′ feet from his desk for the taking)
Salesman decides he’ll “fix” his broken $.25 pen instead of grabbing new one. Pulls out pocket knife and accidentally stabs himself in finger. Wound & resulting infection (because he didn’t tell anyone of bother to get bandage) $600.00.
Insurance company denied claim.
W/C ALJ overturned and awarded claim.
RE: #39, Paddy-O,
What the nimrods that would refuse the victim don’t see is the difference between company policy and how the law reads. In Paddy-O’s example, the sales person’s action is grounds for dismissal. But that dismissal is totally different from the injured party’s right to be compensated for an injury on the job.
Another example would be a worker that is taught to read the labels on containers before mixing them. For whatever reason, the worker grabs the wrong bottle and causes an explosion, injuring himself and damaging the equipment. It wouldn’t matter if the reason was because he was discussing last night’s game, was upset because his wife just left him, or was distracted by the Supervisor.
The only reason the company could possibly use as a defense would be if the victim was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. And even that is not a given.
A video of the incident.
I guess McDonald’s doesn’t really want our business.
#40 Correct. Reason for firing someone and reason for compensation are two different animals.
#41 Good link. The employee “did the right thing”. Should be covered and promoted.
I don’t know what is worse. Getting shot at work, and not having your company cover your medical or actually caring about things like this at a crap job like McDonalds.
Not just corporations but people themselves. DON’T help anyone or you will most likely get sue in the aftermath! 🙂
I’m not too sure if I would have done the same thing. The first step is to tell the guy to leave your store. Second, roll the police on his ass. If he continued beating the woman then you can get medieval on him. All that said, McDonalds should step up and pay out of common decency, not because they are required to but because it is the right thing to do.
A better thing would for Wendy’s or Burger King to do it for publicity.
I personally boycott Pizza Hut because they never support their employees when they protect themselves. Have not been in one of their stores in about 8-10 years.
#46, Diesel,
Why do you condemn Pizza Hut? Just asking as it is one of the few places around here that are half decent to eat in. BUT, if I add them to my list of places not to eat in we can stay home more.
“In a robbery situation it tells employees not to do anything that would put themselves or anyone else in danger.”
Doing nothing to help the customer would put “anyone else in danger” so his action was a part of his job. This should be covered and it is good PR as well.
Holding a person responsible to a contract he signed months or years prior while a high stress event is goning on is not reasonable. Plus good samaritan act encourages people helping.
First of all, let’s clarify something. This incident took place inside the restaurant. The injured worker forced the perpetrator to leave the premises after assaulting the woman. The injured worker was then protecting the premises from the perpetrator by blocking the door. The perpetrator shot him while he was protecting his employer’s premises. With more than 20 years WC experience this claim clearly falls under ‘course and scope’ of this worker’s employment. The worker was furthering his employer’s interests by protecting innocent customers from a violent person by escorting him from the premises and then prohibiting his return. The robbery policy does not apply and it was this workers duty to protect the other innocent customers from a violent perpetrator. Had that criminal entered the building with a gun to rob the place, the workers would have then been compelled by the employer’s policies to turn over the money to the criminal, thereby again protecting the innocent patrons from harm. This young man did not leave his station to engage a criminal act in progress on public property, he did his best to insure the safety of the patrons of the restaurant.
As a mother, grandmother and former business owner, I will no longer take my family to McDonald’s. If that is the way you treat your employees who try to save your business and their fellow employees I no longer will spend any more of my hard earned money with your company….Wendy’s will do just fine! My grandchildren will also know why we are no longer patrons of your establishment as I will make it very clear to them and they are old enough to understand and it’s very clear to me that you don’t! That young man should have received a metal for his heroism!
The ugly reality is that insurance companies and many corporations do everything they can to get out of obligations.
For example, many employers have clauses in their employment contracts that specify that they can recover money paid out to doctors on the behalf of an employee if that employee sues or receives some kind of settlement as a result of anything.
Also, when somebody is disabled, they are no longer an employee. The corporation’s priority is naturally *present* employees, not past employees.
For the same reason, our insurance system is designed to help ensure that working people stay in their jobs, working. That is why insurance is tied to jobs.
Also, when people seek nongroup insurance that insurance is bought from the insurance companies based on their respresentations about their health. If they turn out to be sick, often the insurance companies seek to retroactively repeal their coverage based on alleged misprepresentations. An insurance companies collects money and they usually don’t start trying to disqualify people unless they get sick and then start making claims.
This cant and won’t change under Obama. He has repeatedly endorsed the risk pricing model. Its intrinsic to the risk costing model.
Single payer is off the table.
I read recently that an insurance company, I think, tried to get out of a huge number of claims ($25 million dollars) for three deaths and multiple injuries in a fire at a policy holders business and I think they were saying something like that a clause in the policy exempted them from paying medical claims due to “pollution”.
here are the URLs:
http://www.abajournal.com/news/insurer_applies_pollution_exclusion_in_fire_deaths_from_smoke_inhalation/
http://www.abajournal.com/news/insurer_drops_smoke_pollution_claim_in_25m_fatal_office_fire_litigation/
Sounds like the long island board of workers comp, decided that, what a disgrace. If he did not act he would have be given some other negitive impact, He’sa hero