A Columbia student working as an unpaid restaurant trainee was grossly disfigured by the owner’s dog – but hasn’t seen a cent because the eatery is hiding behind workers’ comp, the victim’s lawyer says.
Fred Amell, 23, has undergone five painful facial surgeries since chef and co-owner Antonio Maroto’s 120-pound Akita ripped off his upper lip on Broadway outside Ana’s restaurant on the Upper West Side in 2004.
Amell filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court in October 2004, demanding Ana’s, Maroto and partner Susan O’Leary pay up for bringing the dangerous dog to the restaurant.
But the restaurateurs’ insurance company filed a workers’-compensation claim on Amell’s behalf – severely limiting what he could win in court and shielding them from the personal-injury suit.
The Supreme Court was forced to defer to the Workers’ Compensation Board, where the case remains.
“The Supreme Court can’t touch it until we get a decision from workers’ comp,” said Amell’s lawyer, Lauren Topelsohn.
She says it’s an “abuse of the system” for the owners to use the law to shield their liability, especially seeing as Amell was never a paid employee.
“It’s a fraud,” she said.
At around 9:45 p.m. on July 26, 2004, Amell stepped outside Ana’s for fresh air.
Maroto was out front with his Akita, Max.
“He said that the dog was very, very nice,” Amell told The Post.
But the animal sprung.
After tearing off his upper lip, Max ripped a chunk of flesh from the pre-med student’s cheek and bit his right arm. “The dog ate my lip,” he said.
A plastic surgeon has operated five times on Amell’s face at a cost of more than $10,000. More surgery is planned.
Amell said Maroto called him at the hospital to apologize.
He said Maroto told him Max had been known to bite and called the dog a “weapon of mass destruction.”
The dog was put down shortly after the attack.
Maroto, 42, says Amell was “on his way to being paid” at Ana’s. He claims he never called Amell in the hospital and never told him Max was dangerous.
O’Leary declined to comment on the lawsuit.
mark.bulliet@nypost.com