Subway has launched an investigation after an employee at a Tennessee branch of the fast food chain was allegedly told to not go to the ER after an injury at work.
In a post shared 12 days ago on Reddit under the username petalios, the worker said: "I work at a Subway franchise in a small town in Tennessee. Tonight, my hand got crushed under the glass that separates the food and customers.... My supervisor said I could not go to the ER because she would get in trouble."
The employee also posted an image of a sign allegedly at the workplace, which says: "If an employee gets injured while at work, do NOT go to the hospital/emergency room."
A Subway spokesperson told Newsweek: "Subway takes the health and safety of franchisee team members very seriously, and we are working to get more information about this post."
Is the employee obligated to comply with the sandwich chain's policy allegedly directing injured workers to not seek treatment at an emergency room?
Texas-based attorney Omar Ochoa told Newsweek: "An employer cannot stop an employee from seeking medical care. It is the injured worker's right to seek the medical treatment that they believe is appropriate, including going to the emergency room if needed."
Ochoa went on: "If an employer says otherwise, the injured employee should ignore their employer because they are not obligated to comply and can't be terminated for seeking medical treatment. If the employee were terminated for ignoring the employer, that could be the basis of a wrongful termination lawsuit."
Injury at Work
by u/petalios in antiwork
In 2021, reported workplace injury cases increased by 6.3 percent to 2.2 million cases, up from 2.1 million cases in 2020, according to a November 2022 report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"The private leisure and hospitality supersector had 235,300 total recordable cases in 2021, which occurred at a rate of 2.9 cases per 100 FTE [full-time equivalent] workers," the report said. The rate rose from 2020, when there were 2.7 cases per 100 FTE workers.
According to the image shared in the Reddit post, a sign at the Subway venue advises injured employees to "visit the nearest Convenient Care office in your area/town."
The sign adds: "If after hours of walk-in clinic closing contact your manager! Managers must contact the office ASAP after you are made aware of the injury." The person at the front desk of the clinic is also directed to bill a certain contact, which appeared to be scribbled over with a purple marker pen.
The worker was instructed to go to the walk-in clinic if it was open and to go the following morning if it wasn't, according to the post. "I went to the clinic and they took the info from my supervisor, and the entire clinic staff thought the entire situation was sketchy," the poster said.
The injured worker was put in a splint and asked to return the next morning because the X-ray technician had gone home.
The incident is not being filed as a case for workers' compensation, according to the poster. "Instead, the office (for this chain of franchises) will pay the bill in cash.... My supervisor couldn't even find any injury forms and said the general manager has never trained her on what to do in this situation.
"I'm scared to talk to my general manager...because I'm worried I'll be tricked into making Subway more responsible," the poster wrote.
Can the Employee Get Workers' Compensation?
The Subway spokesperson said: "Subway restaurants are independently owned and operated, and all franchisees are required to have workers' compensation coverage, as required by law and their franchise agreement."
New York-based employment attorney Howard Matalon told Newsweek: "By law, every employer in Tennessee, other than construction or coal mining, who employs five or more workers are required to carry workers' compensation insurance."
He continued: "The Reddit user would be well advised to make a claim and take care of the injury immediately in the most effective manner possible. It would be illegal for the business to force the employee to avoid making a claim," Matalon said.
The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development advises that an injured worker should "immediately report" any work-related accident, injury or illness to the employer.
The department says: "Employer notification, preferably in writing, is required by law within 15 calendar days of the date of injury or when a physician first tells the employee that his/her injury is work-related."
According to the department, employers covered by Tennessee's workers' compensation law "must submit all known or reported injuries or illnesses to their insurer on Tennessee Employer's First Report of Work Injury or Illness (Form C-20) within one (1) working day of knowledge of the injury or illness.
"Insurance carriers and self-insured employers must file a Form C-20 with the Division through Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) as soon as possible, but not later than fourteen (14) days after knowledge of the injury or illness," the department adds.
Ochoa said that state laws involving workplace injuries vary and that many "limit recovery to a workers' compensation insurance program."
So this makes it "difficult for the injured employee to seek compensation from the employer for instructing them not to go to the emergency room, even if the instruction aggravated their injury," he explained.
"However, the injured employee may have some other cause of action based on the faulty instruction, like retaliation, discrimination or harassment," Ochoa added.
Newsweek has contacted the worker in the Reddit post for comment via email and Reddit's messaging system.
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