La Barbecue cook who lost four fingers on the job sues restaurant for injuries, fraud
AUSTIN, Texas - A cook for La Barbecue, who lost four fingers on the job, is suing the restaurant and its owners for injuries and fraud.
In the summer of 2016, Aaron Gomez lost four fingers on his left hand, which is his dominant hand. He is being represented by attorney Jon Clark.
"At the time they were operating with an unsafe sausage grinder that they asked their employees to use. It had no functioning on-off switch and lacked several pieces of necessary safety equipment," Clark said.
"The switch button from the meat grinder, sometimes it would work, or sometimes it wouldn't, and that day, wasn't working," Gomez said.
In a civil lawsuit against La Barbecue and its owners, Alison Clem and LeAnn Mueller, Gomez argues they prevented him from presenting his case in front of a jury and from getting full damages.
In the summer of 2016, Aaron Gomez lost four fingers on his left hand, which is his dominant hand. He is being represented by attorney Jon Clark.
Clark says someone came to Gomez's hospital room and said they were there on behalf of Mueller and asked him to sign some documents.
"Those documents were fraudulent. Among the documents, they admitted that Aaron was at fault for his own injury, and Aaron refused to sign," Clark said.
Clark claims the owners reached out to an insurance agency, got a workers' compensation policy, and requested it to be backdated before Gomez's injury without disclosing it.
"By getting a workers' comp policy, what they really did was they protected themselves from that civil lawsuit and from personal liability for their injuries to Aaron," Clark said.
Gomez filed a claim and was approved, but that was before he says he knew the policy was backdated. Clark says they're bringing the lawsuit now because they didn't know they could sue civilly at the time.
In August 2022, the Texas Department of Insurance announced Clem and Mueller were indicted for a $350,000 workers' comp fraud scheme.
That case is still making its way through the criminal court. Records show a hearing is set for the end of the month.
Mueller has since passed away.
Clark says the compensation Gomez got was just a sliver of what he was entitled to.
"The reality is that no worker in this state should go to work in the morning and come home without fingers. That's not right," he said.
In a statement, Clem says:
"We have not been served with the lawsuit and so have no comment on it at this time. We have always acted in good faith to ensure that our employees are provided a safe environment in which to work. We are confident that the court system will eventually produce a result consistent with our good intentions."