1-1 AN ACT
1-2 relating to requiring the office of the attorney general to defend
1-3 local community supervision and corrections departments in certain
1-4 suits brought against them.
1-5 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-6 SECTION 1. Section 76.006, Government Code, is amended to
1-7 read as follows:
1-8 Sec. 76.006. Employee Status and Benefits. (a) Except as
1-9 provided by Subsection (c), department employees are not state
1-10 employees. The department shall contract with the most populous
1-11 county served by the department for insurance and retirement plans,
1-12 and the employees are governed by personnel policies and benefits
1-13 equal to personnel policies for and benefits of other employees of
1-14 that county.
1-15 (b) The judicial districts served by a department shall pay
1-16 the salaries of department employees.
1-17 (c) Department employees are state employees for the
1-18 purposes of Chapter 104, Civil Practice and Remedies Code, and
1-19 Chapter 501, Labor Code.
1-20 (d) The attorney general has the duty to defend a department
1-21 for suits for injunctive, declaratory, or monetary relief brought
1-22 against it for any action not covered by an indemnification policy,
1-23 except any action brought by the state or another political
1-24 subdivision. The attorney general shall not defend a department or
2-1 its employees in cases in which a person under supervision
2-2 challenges the fact or duration of the supervision.
2-3 (e) The department shall provide information requested by
2-4 the attorney general that the attorney general considers necessary
2-5 for the defense or prosecution of any case brought under this
2-6 section. [A department is a governmental unit for the purposes of
2-7 Section 101.103(a), Civil Practice and Remedies Code.]
2-8 (f) [(e)] The department shall provide transportation or
2-9 automobile allowances for officers who supervise defendants placed
2-10 on community supervision.
2-11 SECTION 2. The changes in law made by this Act apply only to
2-12 a cause of action that accrues on or after the effective date of
2-13 this article. A cause of action that accrues before the effective
2-14 date of this article is governed by the law in effect on the date
2-15 the cause of action accrues, and that law is continued in effect
2-16 for this purpose.
2-17 SECTION 3. This Act takes effect on September 1, 1997.
2-18 SECTION 4. The importance of this legislation and the
2-19 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-20 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-21 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-22 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
_______________________________ _______________________________
President of the Senate Speaker of the House
I certify that H.B. No. 2779 was passed by the House on April
18, 1997, by a non-record vote.
_______________________________
Chief Clerk of the House
I certify that H.B. No. 2779 was passed by the Senate on May
26, 1997, by the following vote: Yeas 31, Nays 0.
_______________________________
Secretary of the Senate
APPROVED: _____________________
Date
_____________________
Governor