  We test a recently proposed improved lattice-fermion action, the fat link
clover action, examining indicators of pathological small-quark-mass lattice
artifacts ("exceptional configurations") on quenched lattices of spacing 0.12
fm and studying scaling properties of the light hadron spectrum for lattice
spacing a=0.09 and 0.16 fm. We show that the action apparently has fewer
problems with pathological lattice artifacts than the conventional
nonperturbatively improved clover action and its spectrum scales just as well.
