Right to counsel
NOTE: this is a very complex area of law, especially as it relates to stay-at-home orders issued by the states. Please read our primer on quarantine/isolation law before reading this specific state law.
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In Nevada, a health authority that “…knows, suspects or is informed of the existence within the jurisdiction of the health authority of any communicable disease…” can issue orders requiring examination, isolation, quarantine, and treatment. Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 441A.160(1) & (2). “If a health authority isolates, quarantines or treats a person or group of persons infected with, exposed to, or reasonably believed by a health authority to have been infected with or exposed to a communicable disease,” they must do so in accordance with § 441A.510 – 441A.720. Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 441A.510(1). Sections 441A.500 – 441A.720 are specifically named “Isolation and Quarantine of Person of Group of Persons.” Quarantine of an entire area is not mentioned, and it is unclear if the provisions set out below would apply to an area quarantine.
A person can consent to isolation, quarantine, testing, examination, or treatment. However, if the person is an “immediate threat to the health of the public,” or the “…person alleged to have been infected with or exposed to a communicable disease has refused to submit to voluntary isolation or quarantine, examination, testing, or treatment known to control or resolve the transmission of the communicable disease…” the health authority must petition the court for involuntary court-ordered isolation or quarantine. Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 441A.600(2)(a) and (b), respectively.
The person subject to involuntary court-ordered isolation or quarantine, has a right to counsel “…and if the person fails or refuses to obtain counsel, the court shall advise the person and his or her guardian or next of kin, if known, of the right to counsel and shall appoint counsel, who may be the public defender or his or her deputy.” Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 441A.660(1). Appointed counsel’s fees “must be charged against the estate of the person for whom the counsel was appointed or, if the person is indigent, against the county in which the application for involuntary court-ordered isolation or quarantine was filed.” Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 441A.660(2). However, “if the person for whom counsel was appointed is challenging his or her isolation or quarantine or any condition of such isolation or quarantine and…succeeds in [the] challenge,” appointed counsel’s fees “must be charged against the county in which the application for involuntary court-ordered isolation or quarantine was filed.” Id.