With billions of dollars on the line, a Nevada jury is deliberating whether the state's largest health management organization should pay punitive damages in a negligence lawsuit stemming from a Las Vegas hepatitis outbreak called the largest in U.S. history.

A conservative think tank released a study Tuesday that it said shows Las Vegas police employee salaries are inflated, and called for state lawmakers to ban the use of taxpayer money to pay police officers doing union business.

A Nevada jury is being asked to hold the state's largest health management company responsible for up to $1 billion in damages for sending two women to an outpatient medical clinic owned by a once-prominent Las Vegas physician where they contracted incurable hepatitis C in 2005.