That's also the reason the store's workers' compensation insurer is denying $250,000 in death benefits to Talley's 11-year-old son.
The opposition by Dollar Tree and its insurers to paying benefits to Talley's son represents an attempt to set new limits on California's workers' compensation system, under which a company provides benefits to employees or their survivors for work-related deaths or injuries regardless of whether the firm was at fault.
Ms. Talley left behind a son who is now in sixth grade. He's the one they're denying the insurance payment to. (Via.)
The boy who walked into a Tracy[, California] gym earlier this week wearing a shackle on one leg and suffering from numerous injuries "Won't be right for a long time," said a Tracy police official close to the case. Another said the boy had been enduring "torture."
Tracy police spokesman Matt Robinson made that observation after reporters covering the case noted that the boy had been through a long ordeal that culminated with his arrival, gaunt, hurt and chained, at the health club Monday.
The boy, whose identity is being withheld by authorities, ran away from a Sacramento group home 15 to 18 months ago. He had been missing until Monday afternoon when he showed up seeking help at a Tracy health club, Robinson said.
Chained at the ankle, covered in cuts and painfully gaunt, the trembling 17-year-old startled exercising clients at the In-Shape Sports health club when he ran in pleading, "Can you hide me? Can you hide me?"
After club employees called police, officers talked to the boy and later arrested Schumacher and Lau. The couple, who have four children of their own, are not related to the boy, Robinson said, and authorities do not know how he got to their home, why he was there or if he was being held captive.
Ramirez, in addition to her alleged connection to the 17-year old, she was wanted on a probation violation in Sacramento County on felony child abuse charges.
My guess? His aunt sold him to the couple as slave labor to care for their four kids, ages 1, 3, 7 and 9.
Fun fact: The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution is the only section that restricts the actions of individual persons, rather than the government.
More fun stuff:
[North Carolina Sgt. 1st Class Chad] Stephens talked to his psychiatrists, and they detailed his problems: jumpiness, nightmares, avoidance issues.
He told them: I'm only like that in the civilian world. In the military world, I'm good.
He talked to his wife, Rosalie, and said, "Look, let me go [to Iraq] one more time, and I'll come back and I'll retire."
She doesn't want to hear it.
"He's got so many medical reasons wrong with him," Rosalie Stephens said in an interview. "He does not need to go over there again. To me, he's like a ticking time bomb."
He talks about death so much, she said. She imitated his voice: "'If I go over there, I'm not afraid of death. I look death in the eye.'
"It's like he's bragging or something," she said.
But Stephens passed his medical review.
Doctors talked to doctors, and they concluded Stephens is good to go. Rosalie suspects they lost some paperwork somewhere.
The man wants to be in Iraq because he can't cope with the world. He was decorated for pulling his wounded 20-year-old gunner out of the Bradley he drove. The gunner died.
Also good times:
The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday approved a last-minute rule change by the Bush administration that will allow coal companies to bury streams under the rocks leftover from mining. ...
The 11th hour change before President George W. Bush leaves office would eliminate a tool that citizens groups have used in lawsuits to keep mining waste out of streams. Mining companies had been pushing for the change for years.
(Via.)
Mithras, this basically just ruined my day.
Posted by: Jamelle | December 06, 2008 at 11:53 AM