Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 24A-PL-418 | April 29, 2024 Page 1 of 7

IN THE

Court of Appeals of Indiana

Perry County, Indiana; The Board of Commissioners of the 

County of Perry (Indiana); Randy Cole; Randy Kleaving; 

Rebecca Thorn,

Appellants-Defendants

v.

Keith D. Huck,

Appellee-Plaintiff

April 29, 2024

Court of Appeals Case No.

24A-PL-418

Appeal from the Perry Circuit Court

The Honorable Justin B. Mills, Special Judge

Trial Court Cause No.

62C01-2401-PL-31

Opinion by Judge Mathias
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 24A-PL-418 | April 29, 2024 Page 2 of 7

Judges Tavitas and Weissmann concur.

Mathias, Judge.

Facts, Procedural History, and Issue on Appeal

[1] The facts in this expedited appeal are not in dispute. Keith Huck is an elected 

member of the Perry County Common Council. In June 2023, during his term 

as a councilman, the Perry County Board of Commissioners (“the Board”)

publicly voted to no longer provide health insurance coverage to part-time 

employees effective January 2024. As Huck averaged only nine work hours per 

month as a councilman, he lost his insurance coverage. He did not obtain 

alternative coverage following the Board’s June 2023 vote.

[2] Huck filed a petition for a preliminary injunction to require the Board to 

provide him with health insurance coverage on the theory that, as an elected 

county official, he is necessarily a full-time employee, regardless of his actual 

hours worked. The trial court agreed and entered a preliminary injunction in 

Huck’s favor. The Board then moved for expedited consideration of this 

interlocutory appeal, which we granted.

[3] We consider the following dispositive issue: whether elected county officials are 

per se full-time employees such that counties must provide them with health 

insurance coverage. We conclude that they are not. Accordingly, we reverse the 
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 24A-PL-418 | April 29, 2024 Page 3 of 7

trial court’s preliminary injunction for Huck and remand for further 

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Discussion and Decision

[4] The Board appeals the trial court’s preliminary injunction for Huck. Our 

resolution of this appeal hinges on the trial court’s conclusion that Huck 

satisfied the first requirement for a preliminary injunction, namely, that he had 

established a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of his claim. See 

Members of Med. Licensing Bd. v. Planned Parenthood Great Nw., Haw., Alaska, Ind., 

Ky., Inc., 211 N.E.3d 957, 964 (Ind. 2023).

[5] It is well settled that the grant of a preliminary injunction rests within the sound 

discretion of the trial court, and our review is limited to whether the court 

abused that discretion. Id. But one way a trial court abuses its discretion is by 

misinterpreting the law. Id. And where, as here, our analysis of the reasonablelikelihood-of-success requirement turns on the trial court’s interpretation of 

purely legal issues, we review those issues de novo. Id. at 965.

[6] Indiana Code chapter 5-10-8 (2022) describes health insurance benefits for 

public employees. In particular, section 5-10-8-1(1) defines an “employee” as 

follows:

(A) an elected or appointed officer or official, or a full-time 

employee;

(B) if the individual is employed by a school corporation, a fulltime or part-time employee;
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 24A-PL-418 | April 29, 2024 Page 4 of 7

(C) for a local unit public employer, a full-time or part-time 

employee or a person who provides personal services to the unit 

under contract during the contract period; or

(D) a senior judge appointed under IC 33-24-3-7;

whose services have continued without interruption at least thirty 

(30) days.

And section 5-10-8-2.6(b), which applies to local unit public employers and 

employees, states in relevant part: “A public employer may provide programs of 

group insurance for its employees . . . . The public employer may, however, exclude 

part-time employees . . . from any group insurance coverage that the public 

employer provides to the employer’s full-time employees.” (Emphasis added.) 

Finally, we note that section 5-10-8-2.6(d) states that “[a]n insurance contract 

for local employees under this section may not be canceled by the public 

employer during the policy term of the contract.”

[7] We conclude that, as an elected official, Huck is an employee under those 

statutes. But that is not the end of the inquiry. The statutes confer on local 

boards the authority to exclude employees from health insurance coverage 

based on their status as full-time or part-time employees, and the statutes 

neither define “full-time” and “part-time” employees nor exempt elected 

officials from that consideration. See I.C. § 5-10-8-2.6(b). Thus, under the plain 

language of the statutes, the Board had the authority to discontinue health 

insurance coverage for an elected official who was also a part-time employee.
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 24A-PL-418 | April 29, 2024 Page 5 of 7

[8] Absent clear direction from our General Assembly to the contrary, the 

definition of “full-time” and “part-time” employees here is controlled by federal 

law. And, as directed by the Affordable Care Act, the Internal Revenue Service 

has defined a “full-time employee” as “an employee employed on average at 

least 30 hours of service per week, or 130 hours of service per month.” 

Identifying Full-time Employees, irs.gov, https://www.irs.gov/affordable-careact/employers/identifying-full-time-employees (last accessed on Apr. 25, 

2024).1

[9] The evidence here is undisputed that Huck’s actual work hours averaged about 

nine hours per month. He is therefore not a full-time employee. And that 

enabled the Board to exclude him from future health insurance coverage. I.C. § 

5-10-8-2.6(b).

[10] We briefly address Huck’s additional arguments on appeal. First, he asserts 

that, because he is an elected official, he is not required to keep a record of his 

hours worked nor is he paid hourly, which implies that the General Assembly 

views elected officials as per se full-time employees. Appellee’s Br. at 12; see

I.C. § 36-2-5-13(b). We acknowledge that there is no requirement for elected 

officials to keep a record of hours worked; however, we also acknowledge that 

local boards are often well-aware of the hours required to be worked by elected 

1 We acknowledge that Indiana’s tax code provides that, for purposes of Indiana Code chapter 6-3.1-13, a 

“full-time employee” means an employee who works “for at least thirty-five (35) hours each week . . . .” I.C. 

§ 6-3.1-13-4.
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 24A-PL-418 | April 29, 2024 Page 6 of 7

officials in their counties. Indiana law favors yielding to the discretion of local 

rule absent state law to the contrary, and, here, we have no state law to the 

contrary. See I.C. §§ 36-1-3-1 to -13. We therefore conclude that the General 

Assembly intended to allow local boards to exercise their common-sense 

discretion in determining full-time and part-time elected officials.

[11] Huck also asserts that a Perry County employee handbook, and concomitant 

ordinances, treats elected officials differently than other employees. Be that as it 

may, Huck cites no authority for his apparent proposition that a majority vote 

of the Board to exercise the authority granted to it under Indiana Code section 

5-10-8-2.6(b) cannot stand based on an employee handbook or a local 

ordinance. We therefore reject this argument.

[12] For all of the above-stated reasons, the trial court erred when it concluded that 

Huck had established a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of his 

claim against the Board. As the “[f]ailure to prove any one” of the requirements 

for a preliminary injunction “requires denying the injunction,” we reverse the 

trial court’s entry of the preliminary injunction for Huck, and we remand for 

further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Leone v. Comm’r, Ind. Bureau of 

Motor Vehicles, 933 N.E.2d 1244, 1248 (Ind. 2010).

[13] Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

Tavitas, J., and Weissmann, J., concur.
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 24A-PL-418 | April 29, 2024 Page 7 of 7

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANTS

Anthony W. Overholt

Maggie L. Smith

Alexander P. Will

Frost Brown Todd, LLC

Indianapolis, Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE

Keith W. Vonderahe

Dirck H. Stahl

Ziemer Stayman Weitzel & Shoulders, LLP

Evansville, Indiana