McDonald's Won't Pay Hospital Bills of Hero Employee

Worker got shot protecting customer
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 19, 2009 5:18 PM CST
McDonald's Won't Pay Hospital Bills of Hero Employee
The golden arches hang on a McDonald's restaurant in Chicago.   (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

It doesn't pay to be a hero, sometimes. A McDonald's employee who stepped in to prevent a man from beating up a woman in the restaurant got shot multiple times and ended up with $300,000 in medical bills. Now McDonald's says it's won't pay up because his injuries "did not arise out of or within the course and scope of his employment," the Arkansas Times reports.

Nigel Haskett, 22, has filed a workers' comp complaint. His lawyer says McDonald's is apparently sticking by company policy that it lays out for workers: Don't be hero, call 911. But even the judge handling the trial of Haskett's assailant singled him out in court. "Here is this young man working for minimum wage, coming to the aid of a woman," he said, before donating $100 to a fund set up on Haskett's behalf.
(More McDonald's stories.)

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