Brookshire Groc. Co. v. Morgan, 2017 Ark. 221

Jefferson County deputy sheriff (appellee) working as an on-site security guard at Brookshire Grocery was injured while pursuing a shoplifter who had escaped custody.
Dispute centered on whether the deputy was an employee or an independent contractor for Workers’ Compensation purposes.
The Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission (Full Commission) adopted the ALJ’s findings but did not issue a separate full opinion.
The Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed by memorandum opinion, citing its practice of issuing memorandum opinions in briefed cases.
Brookshire petitioned the Arkansas Supreme Court for review, arguing the court of appeals gave no meaningful legal analysis on a primarily legal question.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the court of appeals’ memorandum opinion adequately resolved the legal question (employee v. independent contractor)	Memorandum opinion provided no meaningful legal analysis; issue is legal, not purely factual	Commission’s factual findings control; memorandum affirmance acceptable	Supreme Court vacated the court of appeals’ memorandum opinion and remanded for proper analysis
Whether the court of appeals may continue to dispose of briefed cases by memorandum opinion under In re Memorandum Opinions	Memorandum opinions are no longer justified given expanded court resources and fewer opinions issued	Maintain memorandum practice as precedent for disposing of clear or factbound cases	Court overruled In re Memorandum Opinions and ended the memorandum-opinion practice
Whether Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 5-2(e) should permit memorandum opinions	Rule should be amended to require full written opinions going forward	Rule previously allowed memorandum opinions; court of appeals relied on it	Rule 5-2(e) amended to require conventional (full) opinions for the court of appeals

In re Memorandum Opinions, 700 S.W.2d 63 (Ark. App. 1985) (per curiam) (originally authorized memorandum-opinion practice; now overruled)