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Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods oppose injured police officer's benefits claim Sunday, Jun 29, 2008 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Former Pine Bluff police officer Jimmy Singleton was patting down a suspect on March 1, 2003, when the man stuck a gun in Singleton's stomach. In the ensuing struggle, Singleton received a gunshot wound to his left ankle and a blow to the head that knocked him unconscious. He says he sustained neurological damage that affected his thinking and walks with a limp because of bullet fragments that remain lodged in his ankle. "If I stand on my foot too long my foot will swell up," Singleton said. "I can't stand loud noises and bright lights. I get migraine headaches all the time." For the past five years, Singleton, 43, has been fighting a court battle to obtain disability benefits. It's a fight that has pitted him against some unexpected opponents, including Bentonville-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Springdale-based Tyson Foods Inc. Singleton was puzzled when the world's largest retailer and the world's largest meat processor, along with the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce and two other employers' associations, tendered friend-of-the-court briefs with the state Supreme Court this month arguing his claim should be denied. "That just blows me out of the water," he said. "I have no clue. My attorney told me, and I couldn't understand it. I don't know why they're getting involved." Fort Smith lawyer E. Diane Graham, who is representing Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods and the Arkansas Self-Insured Association in the matter, said the scope of the case goes beyond Singleton and his former employer. "I think it's an issue that's of interest to employers, period," she said. Since Singleton first filed his claim for benefits, the state Worker's Compensation Commission has twice voted to deny it. The commission said there was no objective evidence showing that Singleton sustained permanent physical impairment. Singleton's attorney, Kenneth Harper of Monticello, said he wasn't sure how the commission could say that about Singleton's ankle injury. "He's got a bullet in the dad-gum thing," Harper said. "That's pretty objective to me." The state Court of Appeals has reversed both of the commission's rulings against Singleton, finding that the commission wrongly excluded some evidence from consideration. "The claimant's allegations of a foot injury affecting his mobility are quite clearly supported by observed bullet fragments embedded in his foot," the court said in its first opinion in the case. After the commission denied Singleton's claim a second time, the Court of Appeals said in a strongly worded opinion that the commission could not usurp the judiciary's function in interpreting state law. "Should the commission, on remand, again refuse to comply with our mandate, recourse may be had to enforcement by the Arkansas Supreme Court," the appeals court said. On June 12, the city of Pine Bluff petitioned the state's highest court to review the case and overturn the Court of Appeals' rulings. Four days later, lawyers for Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods, the Arkansas Self-Insured Association, the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce and the Association of Independent Industries tendered two friend-of-the-court briefs also asking the state Supreme Court to reverse the lower court's rulings. "Now we're going from the legal realm and we're moving into the political realm," Harper said. "Somebody is wanting to assert some influence." Graham declined to discuss specifics of the case, but she said in the brief she submitted her clients have an interest in the matter because the case "presents the very important issue of preserving the fact-finding and rule-making authority" of the state Worker's Compensation Commission. Graham said the commission acted within its authority when it gave more weight to the testimony of doctors who said Singleton sustained no permanent impairment than to the testimony of a doctor who said there was impairment. "Although the Arkansas appellate courts certainly have the authority to conduct judicial review, that authority does not extend to allow a review process which would substitute fact-finding decisions of the appellate courts for the decisions of the commission," Graham argued in the brief. Harper said the "big boys" are interested in the case because they fear the Court of Appeals' rulings will set a precedent that will allow more people to collect on disability claims. Meanwhile, Harper said, Singleton has yet to receive disability benefits more than five years after he was injured while serving the public. "I really think it's just an ugly situation," he said. Now retired, Singleton - who served as McGehee police chief from 1993 to 1999 - said he does receive retirement benefits, but that they don't go far in today's economy. He said he does not understand why so many people object to him receiving benefits for his disability. "I was a chief of police, and I never treated anybody like this," he said. |
