Assembly retrieves damage awards bill that mirrors one Gibbons vetoed

CARSON CITY — Gov. Jim Gibbons got a break Friday as the Nevada Assembly moved to retrieve an approved measure that mirrors in part a bill he vetoed because it doubles a cap on damage awards paid by state or local governments.

Assembly members were told that with the return of AB483 to the Legislature, the lawmakers can work on a compromise with the governor.

AB483 raises the damage award cap from $50,000 to $100,000. That’s the limit on money that government entities would pay if successfully sued by someone. The bill mirrors SB66, vetoed on Wednesday by Gibbons, who termed it burdensome and "fiscally harmful."

Besides the damage award cap, AB483 also expands Nevada’s homestead laws, something Gibbons had proposed in his State of the State speech and would lose if he vetoed AB483.

State Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, who along with all other members of the Senate and Assembly supported AB483, described the duplicating language on damage awards as "insurance."

"We have a lot of smart people in this building, and they’re all engaged in the same chess game," said Care. "So they go looking for insurance here and there. I don’t know what the governor is going to do with the other bill now."

"We’re not trying to be cute. It’s just insurance," Care added. "We all believe in our bills, and we do what we can to get them passed."

Representatives of several state and local government entities had opposed SB66, including lobbyists for the Clark County School District, the Nevada System of Higher Education, University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, the Nevada Association of Counties and the League of Cities.

Care had argued that SB66 was an attempt to restore fairness in cases where a government agency has harmed someone. He added that if the $50,000 cap had gone up in line with inflation, it would be about $150,000 today. It was set in 1979.

The homestead exemption provision in AB483 would increase the amount of equity protected from creditors in homesteaded property from $350,000 to $450,000. In his State of the State address, Gibbons had proposed that the limit be removed completely.