If you're a waiter, busboy, or other restaurant employee in the Northern Illinois or Chicago area, and you've been injured at work due to negligence, carelessness, or any other factor (evensomething resulting from a mistake you made), you may be entitled to significant benefits. However, unless you retain the services of a top caliber Chicago workers' compensation attorney, like the associates here at Steven J. Malman & Associates, PC, you may find yourself mired in along term losing battle against insurance companies, recalcitrant employers, and an uncaring bureaucracy.

Before we discuss remedies for waiter related personal injuries and occupational hazards, it's first important to take a measure of the problem. The National Restaurant Association and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health both report that tens of thousands of waiters, kitchen workers, and other restaurant staff suffer career ending and life altering injuries every year. While kitchen workers encounter unique dangers (such as scalding stoves, sharputensils and oily floors) that waiters and waitresses are usually not subjected to, hazards nevertheless abound for waitstaff.

Some common causes of waiter injuries include:

Repetitive stress injuries brought on from standing for long hours, holding trays, etc.
Arthritis and degenerative bone and ligament problems.
Slip and fall injuries.
Burns from hot food.
Motor vehicle accidents (during food deliveries).
Projectile injuries (from flying plates, pans, etc).
Cuts, bruises and contusions (sustained, for instance, after dropping glassware).
Food poisoning from noshing on spoiled or poorly prepared snacks.

Often, when Northern Illinois workers' compensation lawyers, like the team here at the Law Offices of Steven J. Malman & Associates, investigate waiter injury complaints, they discover other legally actionable violations. For instance, a waiter may come to us complaining of a back injury sustained during a slip and fall. We may then investigate and discover that the restaurateur maintained the facilities poorly and subjected not only the initial complainant to dangerous conditions but also subjected other workers and even customers to hazards. (In such a case, a class action suit against the restaurateur might even be possible.)

To develop a strategy for how to deal with your Chicago workers' compensation case, call our offices right now at 1-888-MALMAN-LAW or e-mail us at info@malmanlaw.com. We are available 24x7 for consultations, and we provide a no fee guarantee. That means that you don't have to risk any of your hard won wages to get our services -- you only pay if and when we win in court for you or win a settlement.