Racial killing at Dollar Tree leads to new law
By Bob Egelko, Staff Writer
The San Francisco Chronicle Wednesday, October 14, 2009
SACRAMENTO -- The case of a murdered African American store clerk, whose family was initially denied workers' compensation benefits because her killer allegedly acted on racial motives, has led to a change in California law.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Sunday that will prohibit insurers from denying workers' compensation claims on the grounds that the employee's attacker was motivated by prejudice.
The measure, AB1093 by Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada, D-Davis, was prompted by the case of Taneka Talley, a clerk at a Dollar Tree store in Fairfield.
Talley, 26, was stabbed to death in March 2006 while stocking shelves. Tommy Joe Thompson of West Sacramento was arrested a short time later and charged with murder.
At a March 2007 hearing on the defendant's mental competency to stand trial, a defense psychiatrist testified that Thompson had told him he stabbed Talley because she was black.
Thompson, who is white, was eventually convicted of murder and sentenced to 51 years to life in prison. Prosecutors did not accuse him of a hate crime, and the motive for the killing was not an issue in his trial.
But while the trial was pending, Dollar Tree's insurers denied benefits to Talley's 11-year-old son. In a letter to the family's lawyer, an attorney for the insurer said the child wasn't entitled to benefits because his mother had been attacked for racial reasons, as shown by the psychiatrist's testimony.
State law requires employers to pay benefits to employees or their survivors for all work-related injuries. However, an attack that arises from purely personal motives is not covered.
After protesters picketed the Fairfield store and the family appealed the insurers' decision, Dollar Tree agreed to settle the claim in January. The amount of the payment wasn't disclosed.
Yamada said Tuesday that AB1093, which she called Taneka's Law, guarantees that "no other California family will have to suffer the dual trauma of losing a loved one and having a benefits claim denied, based on one person's personal hatred of another because of who they are."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/14/BAO61A58PO.DTL&tsp=1
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