Richard Wayne Barfield's 23-year-long battle for compensation from the state after he was badly beaten by a state trooper during a traffic stop will go on for at least another month.
Barfield's attorney, J. Michael Gay of Hillsborough, said today that Deputy Commissioner Wanda Taylor of the N.C. Industrial Commission heard preliminary arguments in the case this morning, then gave Gay and the state Attorney General's office 30 days to submit legal briefs, reports Dan Kane.
Sometime after that, Taylor will decide whether to award up to $100,000 in compensatory damages to Barfield, dismiss the case as the state wants, or call for an evidentiary hearing.
Read more after the jump.
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Barfield suffered severe head injuries from the beating by Trooper Geary Blackwood outside a convenience store in Fayetteville in 1985. Surgeons had to remove a piece of his skull and then patched his head together with cranial plaster and a plate.
Blackwood said he did nothing wrong and was defending himself, but the patrol let him go shortly after the arrest and said he had acted outside of the scope of his authority.
The state is also using that argument to deny having to pay Barfield compensation.
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