N.M. Stat. § 52-1-3.1

This is the official text of N.M. Stat. § 52-1-3.1, part of New Mexico’s Stat — part of the compiled statutory law of New Mexico, published by the state as "Stat." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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§ 52-1-3.1. Public employee

Official statutory text

A. As used in the Workers' Compensation Act, unless otherwise provided, “ public employee ” means any person receiving a salary from, and acting in the service of, the state or any county, municipality, school district, drainage, irrigation or conservancy district, public institution or administrative board, including elected or appointed public officers.

B. “ Public employee ” includes an unpaid health professional deployed by the department of health within New Mexico in response to a declared public emergency or public health emergency or deployed by the department of health outside New Mexico in response to a request for emergency health personnel made pursuant to the Emergency Management Assistance Compact; provided that, for purposes of the Workers' Compensation Act:

(1) the department of health shall be considered to be the employer of the person;

(2) the person's average weekly wage, for the purpose of calculating compensation, shall be considered to be the average weekly wage for similar services performed by paid workers in like employment; and

(3) the person shall not be considered an employee in the calculation of any fee pursuant to Section 52-5-19 NMSA 1978 .

C. “ Public employee ” does not include an independent contractor.

Status: in_force

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.