Del. Jay Leftwich

Licensing of retailers of vapor products; penalty. Requires any person that engages in the retail sale of vapor products to register with the Department of Taxation as a retail dealer. The bill authorizes the Department to charge an application fee not to exceed its costs of enforcement and application processing. The bill provides for recordkeeping requirements and makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor to engage in fraud or misrepresentation in connection with an application.

Special education; due process hearings; nonattorney representatives. Permits a school division and the parents of a child with a disability in the school division to be accompanied and advised by any nonattorney with special knowledge or training with respect to the needs of children with disabilities in any due process hearing before a hearing officer. The bill declares that it constitutes the practice of law without being authorized or licensed to do so as prohibited by law when any such nonattorney drafts or submits pleadings, motions, or briefs; presents evidence; makes any argument, including any argument relating to any law or regulation; or questions witnesses on behalf of any parent or student. The bill requires the Board of Education to adopt regulations to establish (i) licensure requirements, including minimum training and qualification requirements, (ii) a code of professional conduct, and (iii) a mechanism for the review and resolution of complaints for such nonattorneys. Current law permits the school division and the parents of a child with a disability to be represented by any individual, regardless of special knowledge or training, in any due process hearing before a hearing officer and declares that such representation does not constitute the practice of law without being authorized or licensed to do so.

Campgrounds; inherent risks; liability. Provides that a person who goes camping at a campground shall be presumed to have known the inherent risks of camping, defined in the bill. The bill states that a campground, an owner or operator of a campground, and any employee or officer of a campground shall be immune from civil liability for acts or omissions related to camping at a campground if a person is injured or killed, or the property of an individual or group is damaged, as a result of the inherent risks of camping. An owner or operator of a campground, and any employee or officer of a campground, may be held civilly liable under this section if the person or agents of the campground seeking immunity intentionally cause injury, death, or property damage; act with a willful or wanton disregard for the safety of others or the property of others; or fail to conspicuously post warning signs of a dangerous inconspicuous condition known on the property if the owner of the campground is aware of the condition by reason of a prior injury involving the same location or the same mechanism of injury.

Workers' compensation; post-traumatic stress disorder;law-enforcement officers and firefighters. Provides that post-traumaticstress disorder incurred by a law-enforcement officer or firefighter iscompensable under the Virginia Workers' Compensation Act if a mental healthprofessional examines a law-enforcement officer or firefighter and diagnosesthe individual as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result ofthe individual's undergoing a qualifying event, which includes an event occurringin the line of duty on or after July 1, 2020, in which a law-enforcementofficer or firefighter views a deceased minor, witnesses the death of a personor an incident involving the death of a person, witnesses an injury to a personwho subsequently dies, has physical contact with and treats an injured personwho subsequently dies, transports an injured person who subsequently dies, orwitnesses a traumatic physical injury that results in the loss of a vital bodypart or a vital body function that results in permanent disfigurement of thevictim. Other conditions for compensability include (i) if the post-traumaticstress disorder resulted from the law-enforcement officer or firefighter actingin the line of duty and, in the case of a firefighter, such firefightercomplied with certain federal Occupational Safety and Health Act standards;(ii) if the law-enforcement officer's or firefighter's undergoing a qualifyingevent was a substantial factor in causing his post-traumatic stress disorder;(iii) if such qualifying event, and not another event or source of stress, wasthe primary cause of the post-traumatic stress disorder; and (iv) if thepost-traumatic stress disorder did not result from any disciplinary action,work evaluation, job transfer, layoff, demotion, promotion, termination,retirement, or similar action of the officer or firefighter. The measureestablishes procedural requirements on employers that contest a claim for suchbenefits. The measure also establishes requirements for resilience and self-caretechnique training.

Virginia Retirement System; retired law-enforcement officers employed as school security officers. Allows a retired law-enforcement officer to continue to receive his service retirement allowance during a subsequent period of employment by a local school division as a school security officer, so long as he has a break in service of at least 12 calendar months between retirement and reemployment, did not retire under an early retirement program, and did not retire under the Workforce Transition Act of 1995. The provisions of the act shall expire on July 1, 2025. The bill incorporates HB 986, HB 1368 and HB 1493.

Statewide prioritization process; primary evacuation routes. Requires the Office of Intermodal Planning to include in the results of screening candidate projects in the Six-Year Improvement Program whether such projects are located on a primary evacuation route.

Jurisdiction of civil claims; amending amountof claim; concurrent jurisdiction. Provides that, for civil actionsin which the circuit court and the general district court have concurrentjurisdiction, where a matter is pending in the circuit court, upon motion of the plaintiff seeking to decrease the amount of the claim,the circuit court shall order transfer of the matter to the generaldistrict court having jurisdiction over the claim without requiringa dismissal of the claim or a nonsuit. The bill provides that thetolling of the applicable statutes of limitations governing the pendingmatter shall be unaffected by the transfer. The bill further providesthat, except for good cause shown, no such order of transfer shallissue unless the motion to amend and transfer is made at least 10days before trial and requires that the plaintiff shall pay filingand other fees to the clerk of the court to which the case is transferred,prepare and present the order of transfer to the transferring courtfor entry, and provide a certified copy of the transfer order to the receiving court.

Health insurance; cost-sharing payments for prescription insulin drugs. Prohibits health insurance companies and other carriers from setting an amount exceeding $30 per 30-day supply that a covered person is required to pay at the point of sale in order to receive a covered prescription insulin drug. The measure also prohibits a provider contract between a carrier or its pharmacy benefits manager and a pharmacy from containing a provision (i) authorizing the carrier's pharmacy benefits manager or the pharmacy to charge, (ii) requiring the pharmacy to collect, or (iii) requiring a covered person to make a cost-sharing payment for a covered prescription insulin drug in an amount that exceeds such limitation. This bill incorporates HB 1403.

Uniform Directed Trust Act. Codifies theUniform Directed Trust Act, which expressly validates terms of a trustthat provide for a trust director, a term that is defined in theAct, and prescribes a set of rules for directed trusts, includingallocation of fiduciary duties.

Coal ash ponds; well monitoring program; drinking water well testing. Requires each utility, defined in the bill as the owner or operator of a coal ash pond, to commission an independent well water test on behalf of the owner of any well located within 1.5 miles of such coal ash pond by January 1, 2021, and requires such test to be conducted once per year during each of the five years following the approval of the closure of the coal ash pond and once every five years thereafter. The bill provides that if any test exceeds groundwater quality standards for constituents associated with coal ash, the Virginia Waste Management Board shall instruct the utility to provide alternative water supplies to the owner of the well. The bill requires the Department of Environmental Quality to consider the results of the tests in its permitting, monitoring, or enforcement proceedings.