Offer to settle with fired worker rejected

Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2003 | 8:40 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Attorney General Brian Sandoval said Tuesday his office has rejected a proposed $3.5 million settlement for a former state employee who won a U.S. Supreme Court ruling after being fired for taking time off to care for his injured wife.

William Hibbs of McGill has said he's ready to settle the case and wants his state job back, and Sandoval said he's still open to settling but not at the amount suggested by Hibbs' lawyer, Treva Hearne. Sandoval said he objected to the approximately $1.7 million in legal fees that Hearne factored into the proposal and he asked her to provide documentation to support that amount.

Some of the lawyer fees are for Hearne but most of them are for the Washington, D.C., lawyers who argued the case before the Supreme Court.

Hearne said she is ready to go to trial and has asked the federal court in Reno to set up a mediation meeting as a prelude to any trial. She said the state has not opposed the motion. She said she will prepare the documents asked for by Sandoval.

If the case goes to court and Hibbs wins, he would be eligible for back pay to 1997.

If it does need to pay Hibbs, the state has a few million more dollars than it thought it would have. Sandoval released a report Tuesday that shows the state paid $1.7 million in processing more than 450 tort claims and attorney fees last fiscal year, the lowest amount since 1996 when the payout was $1.6 million.

Stan Miller, chief of tort claims in the attorney general's office, told the state Board of Examiners that actuaries had predicted the state would pay $6 million.

He said there was not one claim filed for sexual harassment, which may be due to the training of 160 administrators and managers in state government on the issue. "We're denying far more (tort claims) than we approve," said Miller. In those that are rejected, he said his staff has determined the state is not liable.

In fiscal 2002, the state paid out $4.6 million, Miller said. But that included a $2.4 million payment for an accident involving Nevada police officers chasing a person into Arizona, a state that does not have a cap on the amount of damages that can be recovered against a government.

Hibbs worked for the state Welfare Division and took leave when his wife, Dianne, was injured in an auto accident. He was fired in 1996 when he did not report for work, and he filed suit claiming the federal Family Leave Act was violated. But state officials say he received 18 weeks of leave when the federal law allows 12 weeks.

The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court when the state maintained it could not be sued because of its sovereign immunity. But the Supreme Court ruled against the state and sent the case back to the lower courts.

Hearne said if her side wins one part of the case, such as an injunction putting Hibbs back to work, the state will have to pay all of the lawyer fees.

Neither side would disclose the total amount of damages that Hibbs is asking. Hibbs said his lawyers in Washington -- Cornelia Pillard of Georgetown University School of Law and the Wilmer Cutler law firm -- would give up their fees if he is put back to work under the proposed settlement.

Hearne said those lawyers are ready to continue helping with the Hibbs case if it goes to trial. Hibbs now has a part-time job with the Department of Housing and Urban Development that pays about $1,000 a month.