Nevada attorney general seeks clearer rules on state defense and indemnification in SB67

CARSON CITY — The Nevada Attorney General's Office urged the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 2 to approve Senate Bill 67, a package of changes it says will modernize the state's defense and indemnification rules for state actors and political subdivisions.

“Former state employees try to have their cake and eat it too,” General Counsel Leslie Nino Piro said, explaining why Section 1 would start the 15‑day request clock when an employee—not the attorney general—is served in a lawsuit. “They evade personal service, but expect the state to defend them,” she told the committee.

SB67 would: specify that the 15‑day window to request a defense under NRS 41.0339 begins when the employee is served; allow employees to retain private counsel at any time without first submitting a defense request (but make the government excused from paying defense costs if the employee first hires private counsel); align special verdict language on exemplary or punitive damages with the definitions in chapter 42 of the NRS; expand exclusions to indemnification so the state need not pay where an employee resigned or was terminated for acts outside the scope of employment or where the employee was held criminally liable; and revise supervisory liability language to reflect Ninth Circuit standards for constitutional claims under NRS 41.745.

Piro said the changes are intended to create predictability for government entities and to allow the attorney general discretion in “weighing all of the factors at play,” including whether an appeal is in the state’s best interest. She told the committee some other states already give chief legal officers similar discretion to indemnify in limited circumstances.

Opponents told the committee they worry the bill would unduly limit citizens’ ability to hold government employees accountable. Lisonbee Brazier of the Nevada Justice Association said Section 4 would let government entities determine course‑and‑scope questions that are traditionally questions of fact for a jury, and that the provision could bar indemnification even in serious cases that ultimately produce criminal convictions.

“No one in this room thinks government officials should be shielded when they act maliciously,” Brazier said, but she argued the bill would shift key decisions to government attorneys and agencies rather than neutral fact‑finders.

Committee members asked clarifying questions about how the bill compares with other states’ practices and whether employees who hire private counsel early could later return to request a defense; Piro replied the statute as drafted permits the government to decline to retake representation but that agencies might do so in some cases to protect their own interests.

The committee took no committee vote during the hearing. Supporters and opponents said they are open to working on amendments.

Without formal action recorded, SB67 will remain pending for future committee consideration, and stakeholders indicated they expect additional drafting and negotiation.