When you go to work, the primary aim is to do a good job and earn a wage. You don’t expect to have an accident while at work or suffer a work related illness. Any injury or illness can end up costing you a lot of money which you can ill afford. If you work for a major employer it is highly likely that it will have workers’ compensation insurance. Most states make this a mandatory condition. If you have been injured or become ill, you must submit a claim with the state’s workers’ compensation board or the state equivalent. A successful claim can help pay any medical costs as well as a portion of any lost wages. Talk to a workers’ comp. attorney at any stage during the claim if you would like legal advice. Comfort Suites - Company Profile Comfort Suites is just one of several different branded chains of hotels owned and managed by the huge hospitality corporation, Choice Hotels. Choice Hotels also owns other well-known hotel chains like the Quality Inn, Econo Lodge, Rodeway Inn and the Comfort Inn. In total, Choice manages well over 6,300 different hotels worldwide with its corporate headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. The total number of employees in just the U.S. hotels belonging to the company is enormous. 1,300 people are employed directly at the Choice headquarters in Rockville. Because of the varied employment categories and the large employee base, it is possible that an accident or illness in one or another hotel could happen every day. Hourly Wages of Comfort Suites Employees Hotels tend to be quite labor intensive and there are a number of different job classifications. Most hotels in the Choice Hotels chains (including Comfort Suites) tend to be open 24/7, which means that they need constant staffing. Wages depend on the level of skill, no. of hours worked, whether the hours are unsocial and seniority in the hotel system. These figures given below are a sample of what some Comfort Suites employees earn, the data taken from the payscale.com website, corrected on August 2017. night auditor: $9.66 an hour; front desk manager: $10.50 an hour; housekeeper: $8.82 an hour; front desk clerk: $9.21 an hour; housekeeping manager: $11.49 an hour. Calculating a Wage Loss Claim After an Injury While Working at a Comfort Suites Hotel If you are injured or become ill while at work and your employer is covered by workers’ compensation insurance this means that you should be able to recover the economic costs of your injury or illness. Unlike personal injury claims, a workers’ comp. claim only covers medical expenses and lost earnings. While the medical expenses component covers the full amount, the lost earnings component is only partially compensated. The percentage of the full amount that has been lost varies a little from state to state but tends to hover around the 66% mark. Just to provide a hypothetical example of a typical Comfort Suites workers’ comp. claim, imagine a housekeeper who has a back injury while working at a hotel. The injury leads to absence from work for 3 weeks (18 days as the employee normally works 6 days a week). The employee’s normal hourly wage is $8.82 an hour and the hours per day worked is 7. The claim would then be calculated as follows: 8.82 (hourly wage) x 7 (no. of hours per day) x 18 (no. of days lost) x 0.66 (percentage of full wage allowed). = $733. Ask a WC Attorney For Advice if There are Problems With Your Claim You would think that if you had suffered an injury while working for an employer that had workers’ compensation insurance that all you had to do was put in a claim and wait for a payment. Unfortunately, it is not always as easy as that. Some claims are not honored at all. Awards can be much less than what is claimed. Paperwork may be missing or not relevant. Some employers or their insurers may even claim that you were not injured while at work. You may need to get legal advice from an experienced workers’ comp. attorney in the event that there are problems with your claim. *The content of this article serves only to provide information and should not be construed as legal advice. If you file a claim against Comfort Suites, or any other party, you may not be entitled to any compensation.
