WRAL:
Cary, N.C. — An employee at The HoneyBaked Ham Co. store in Cary who was shot while on the job is now without a job.
Richard Huether was closing the store in Crossroads Plaza in April when, police say, a gunman approached him, attempted to rob him and shot him.
An employee for three years and general manager for 16 months, the husband and father was shot in the stomach – about four inches from his heart.
Several surgeries later, he's still unable to go back to work. Doctors tell him that the earliest he could return to work would be in December.
Huether has been on worker's compensation since April. When the benefits expired, he received an official notice that HoneyBaked Ham terminated his employment and canceled health benefits for him and his family.
This store is just a few miles down the road from our house. I walked by it twice last week. Now I know not to go in, ever.
On a lighter note:
I’m sure our friends on the right will find Huether is to blame. After all, a true-blue, red-blooded RealAmerican(R) would have been packing heat and taken the robber out with one shot to the head.
This is a terrible story, but it is both confusing and not uncommon. I am not sure what they mean by this, “Huether has been on worker’s compensation since April. When the benefits expired…” because his workers comp will not have expired. He should be getting his medical treatment related to his injury and 2/3 of his previous salary through workers’ comp still. (Statute of limitations is 2 years from last payment of medical or indemnity compensation, so if treatment or disability payments are more or less ongoing, the claim can stay open indefinitely). What I *think* they probably mean by benefits expiring is maybe FMLA leave. It is pretty routine for employers to fire / let go injured employees when their leave expires, there’s no legal obligation for them to hold it open. The “good” side, if there is one, is that if work is not available to the person this generally increases the value of their claim at settlement — this of course doesn’t help him much now with his family’s health insurance. But overall he’s in much the same boat as anyone else who’s lost health insurance through work, and is just another reason why we really should stop linking these two things together that have no relationship to each other.