In an article for workcompcentral.com, Michael Whiteley writes that local attorney Rick Spencer “alleges that a top aide to ex-governor and presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee pressured judges to rule against injured workers and played a role in the firings of three judges who say they were removed for favoring claimants over business.”
The affidavits filed by Daniels and White allege a pattern of intimidation that left administrative law judges openly joking around the AWCC offices in Little Rock that they could be fired for ruling against Wal-Mart.
[Bill] Daniels, a Monticello, Ark., attorney, said he was told after he was hired by former Huckabee Chief of Staff Brenda Turner that he needed to be mindful of Huckabee’s pro-business stance.
“She later stated that I should ‘remember that we have a very pro-business governor,'” Daniels said in a March 21, 2005, affidavit.
“I believed then that I was being directed by the governor’s chief of staff to interpret act 796 of 1993 and any cases which came before me in a manner that would result in decisions favorable to respondents and the business and insurance industry without regard to the facts and the law,” Daniels said in the affidavit.
Read the full article after the jump.