The Deschutes County Courthouse in Bend.

A former fast-food restaurant manager says he was forced to work on his feet in Bend until he lost a toe.

David McDaniel is seeking $890,000 in a lawsuit against a local franchise owner of Sonic Drive-In.

The owner, Stacy Parrott, did not return calls seeking comment.

According to the lawsuit, filed Monday in Deschutes County Circuit Court, McDaniel worked at Sonic franchises in Texas for 20 years. In 2021, he was recruited by Parrott’s company, Team Drive In Bend LLC, to manage the Sonic restaurant on U.S. Highway 97 near the Bend office of the DMV.

To facilitate the move, Parrott offered McDaniel the use of his “corporate condo” in Bend to live in, according to the lawsuit.

McDaniel relocated to the condo and started managing the restaurant April 13, 2021. He said he was immediately made to work far more hours than he anticipated — 14-hour days, often back-to-back.

During this time, he earned around $500 per week.

After several weeks, McDaniel felt chills and pain in his feet. He told his supervisor he needed to take a day off to recuperate, the lawsuit states. He was denied and told to report to his shift the next day, according to the lawsuit.

He worked the next three days, then went to the emergency department at St. Charles Bend, where he learned he had an ulcer on his fifth metatarsal with cellulitis and sepsis, according to the lawsuit.

His treatment included surgery, and he was discharged from St. Charles five days later, on May 15. McDaniel said his doctors told him to stay off his feet for several weeks and go to the hospital’s wound care clinic three times a week.

McDaniel told his supervisor about his condition and the prognosis for healing. His supervisor, identified as “TJ” in the complaint, became angry and said “we can’t do that,” the lawsuit states.

McDaniel said that on May 28, Parrott arrived at the condo unannounced and told him he was fired and had to be out of the residence by June 1.

He packed his belongings and left. On June 1, McDaniel attended a medical appointment where his doctor told him his foot did not look good. McDaniel was admitted that day to St. Charles. The next day, his toe was amputated, according to the lawsuit.

McDaniel alleges disability discrimination and that Parrott violated his right to invoke the worker’s compensation system.

There are more than 3,500 Sonic locations across the country, including 14 in Oregon.

Local fast-food owners are now offering hiring bonuses and higher wages as they struggle to attract and retain workers in a historically tight job market. And some fast-food workers in the U.S., including at Pacific Northwest-based Burgerville, have pushed to unionize in the face of long hours, low pay and other negative conditions.

Fast-food workers earn an average of $14 per hour in Deschutes County, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Managers, or “first-line supervisors,” earn an average of $18 per hour.

State economist Josh Lehner said the job market in leisure and hospitality in Central Oregon has fully recovered from the pandemic, though many employers want to hire more people to meet demand. Aging baby boomers leaving the workforce also outnumber workers in younger generations.