Ky. Rev. Stat. » Chapter 12
Kentucky Revised Statutes

Ky. Rev. Stat. § 12.212 (2026)

Attorney General may decline to defend when certain circumstances exist

✓ current as of May 2026
Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section KY-LRCapps.legislature.ky.gov JustiaChapter on Justia CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar

(1) The Attorney General may decline to provide for the defense of a civil action brought against an employee or former employee if he determines that: (a) The act or omission was not within the scope and course of his employment as a state employee; or (b) The employee or former employee acted or failed to act because of actual fraud, corruption, or actual malice on his part; or (c) Defense of the action by the Commonwealth would create a conflict of interest between the Commonwealth and the employee or former employee; or (d) Defense of the action would not be in the best interests of the Commonwealth. (2) The Attorney General may delegate his authority to make these determinations to the chief administrative authority of any agency, institution, board, or commission whose employees are to be defended. History: Created 1976 Ky. Acts ch. 362, sec. 2.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 2 cases (2 in the last 5 years), 2023–2025 · leading case: Aaron Tucker v. Andrew G. Beshear, in His Off. & Individual Capacities (Ky. Ct. App. 2023).
Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment
Aaron Tucker v. Andrew G. Beshear, in His Off. & Individual Capacities (Ky. Ct. App. 2023). · cites it 2× “See KRS 12.212. Beshear further argued that the instant action was barred due to sovereign immunity and/or qualified official immunity.”
Brayden Grimsley v. Phillip Burnett, Jr., in His Individual Capacity & Off. Capacity as Comm'r of the Kentucky State Police (Ky. Ct. App. 2025). “Alternatively, the circuit court concluded KRS 12.212 expressly authorizes the Attorney General to “‘decline to provide for the defense of a civil action’ when he determines that the conduct for which the employee was sued ‘was not within the scope and course of his employment…”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.