H. B. 2277
(By Delegates Amores and Stalnaker)
[Introduced February 19, 2001; referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary.]
A BILL to amend article twenty-nine, chapter thirty of the code of
West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated section
ten, relating to providing employer immunity for disclosure of
information regarding former law-enforcement officers and
providing that information provided is presumed to be in good
faith.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That article twenty-nine, chapter thirty of the code of West
Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be
amended by adding thereto a new section, designated section ten, to
read as follows:
ARTICLE 29. LAW-ENFORCEMENT TRAINING AND CERTIFICATION.
§30-29-10. Employer immunity from liability; disclosure of
information regarding former law-enforcement
officers.
Any sheriff, chief of police, the director or chief executive
of any agency or department employing law-enforcement officers as
defined in section one of this article and the executive director
of the governor's committee on crime, delinquency and correction or
his or her designee who discloses information about a former
law-enforcement officer's job performance to a prospective
law-enforcement employer of the former appointee or employee is
presumed to be acting in good faith and, unless lack of good faith
is shown by clear and convincing evidence, is immune from civil
liability for the disclosure or its consequences. For the purpose
of this section, the presumption of good faith is rebutted upon a
showing that the information disclosed by the former employer was
knowingly false or deliberately misleading, and was rendered with
malicious purpose of the former employee or appointee.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to provide employer immunity
from civil liability for information disclosed regarding former
law-enforcement employees.
This section is new; therefore, strike-throughs and underscoring have been omitted.