US: Californian civil liability case begins

The ground-breaking civil liability lawsuit between Bridget B. and John B. began two weeks ago in a California courtroom. So far, only these two stories have appeared, suggesting that either the case has been adjourned, or the press have been banned.

The first, published in The Mercury News, adds nothing to what we already know about the case.

The second, from MSNBC.com is an interesting review of previous civil liability cases where one partner accused the other of infecting them with HPV - the virus associated with genital/anal warts and cervical/anal/penile cancer - along with some rather pro-Bridget B. quotes from her lawyer.

LA Lawsuit claims man gave wife AIDS
Mercury News/Associated Press
10/14/2008

LOS ANGELES—Opening statements began Tuesday in a lawsuit that claims a man gave his ex-wife AIDS on their honeymoon.

The couple were identified in court papers only as Bridget B. and John B.

"He engaged in reckless, risky, unprotected sexual conduct with numerous men while he was dating Bridget and through their marriage," argued her attorney, Lars Johnson.

The ex-husband, who is acting as his own attorney, said he did not consider himself a homosexual and argued that the woman gave him HIV.

"I'm an innocent man," he said.

Bridget B. testified Tuesday that she thought her husband was a "regular, down-to-earth nice guy" when she met him at a conference for black professionals in Detroit in 1998.

They married in July 2000 and both were diagnosed with HIV that October. They divorced in October 2003.

Bridget B.'s court papers contend that John B.'s e-mails show that he had a "rampant, high-risk secret (homo)sexual lifestyle" that resulted in his being infected.

Bridget B. is suing for negligence, fraud and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu is hearing the case without a jury.

The state Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that Bridget B. could sue her former partner for allegedly infecting her with HIV, even if he did not know he was HIV-positive at the time.

Intimate lawsuits: From bedroom to courtroom

A recent spate of cases pits former partners against each other over STDS

By Brian Alexander

MSNBC.com
Oct. 16, 2008

This week, a trial in a Los Angeles County courtroom is pitting Bridget B. against her former husband, John B. The couple, whose full names aren't being made public, are battling each other over whether he gave her a potentially deadly disease — HIV.

Not only is it a heartbreaking case, but it poses questions that could affect the way you approach your sex life: Are you liable if you pass a sexually transmitted disease to a lover? What if you did not know you were infected? What if you didn’t know for sure, but your actions with other people put you at risk for being infected?

It is well-established law that a person who knows he or she has an infectious disease and deliberately or recklessly infects another is civilly, and sometimes criminally, liable.

But a recent spate of cases is calling into question whether plaintiffs are liable even if they say they didn't know about their STD status.

Ten years ago, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a wife who sued her philandering husband for giving her HPV, the human papillomavirus, was not entitled to a judgment largely because he had no physical symptoms of HPV infection, had no medical diagnosis of HPV infection and could not have known he was infected — if he ever was.

Proof is hard to come by for HPV infection because though some strains can cause cancer and warts, more often there are no symptoms. The virus is typically cleared by the body without the infected person knowing he or she ever had it. Plus, most sexually active adults are exposed to it at some point in their lives.

But in a civil lawsuit, the level of proof is lower than it is in a criminal case. Rather than “beyond a reasonable doubt,” it is “preponderance of the evidence.”

Now fast forward to August, when a jury in Iowa awarded $1.5 million to young woman after she claimed that her boyfriend, a dentist, had infected her with HPV even though her lawyer agrees that it is “virtually impossible” to definitively prove it.

Given that, denying you have had an STD, or even that you have one now, is a minefield, says Jeff Tronvold, the Cedar Rapids attorney who represented the young woman in Iowa.

“If 75 percent of people are exposed to HPV, then everybody should know they had it at one point,” he says. If you deny it to a partner, “you have already met, in my opinion, the civil burden [of proof] because you just lied. You should say, ‘I have no signs, but I cannot tell you I never had it.’ This could change the way we all date.”

A few days before the Iowa verdict came in, the wife of a New York investment banker filed a lawsuit against her husband for a reported $25 million, accusing him of giving her HPV and arguing that he contracted it from prostitutes on business trips. Back in Iowa, Tronvold says he’s been contacted by two more potential plaintiffs who think lovers infected them with an STD.

Who infected whom?
Serious as HPV can be, none of those cases are as heartbreaking as Bridget B.'s.

“Both of them were very successful businesspeople,” explains one of Bridget’s lawyers, Kathleen Grassini. “They met at a convention for [MBA holders] in 1998 and he swept her off her feet.” As their relationship deepened, Grassini alleges, John asked Bridget to stop insisting on condoms during sex, arguing that he was healthy and monogamous. She agreed.

They were engaged on New Year’s Eve, 1999, and had a “blowout” wedding the following summer.

On the honeymoon, Bridget didn’t feel well, and neither did John. After returning, Bridget, who had moved to Los Angeles to be with John, went to her new husband’s doctor. The doctor diagnosed HIV infection and told Bridget that she had brought the virus into the marriage. John was tested and he turned up positive, too. Both now have AIDS.

Bridget was crushed with guilt. Suddenly both her new marriage — and her life — were in danger. “She thought, here is my straight husband and I love him. He could not have done this,” Grassini says. John also told other people that Bridget had given him HIV.

Then Bridget found some e-mails. According to court papers filed in the case, Bridget “learned that before and during their marriage defendant engaged in promiscuous, unprotected homosexual sex and solicited homosexual sex over the Internet.” They were divorced not long after that and Bridget sued, asking for monetary damages.

John still insists that she gave him AIDS, not the other way around.

The case has resembled trench warfare, but it has already established new law. Bridget’s lawyers may not be able to definitively prove that John knew he was infected with HIV (though there are suspicions he did know) but rulings so far in the case have changed California law to say that you are not only liable if you know for a fact you have an STD and transmit it to another person, you may also be liable if you “reasonably should have known.”

That’s the main question the trial is exploring.

In the Iowa case, Tronvold convinced a jury that the dentist led a promiscuous sex life, was having sex with at least one other woman at the same time and that his client’s cervical lesions (created by HPV) occurred only after the start of their relationship. The jury felt the preponderance of the evidence was enough.

Brian Alexander is the author of the new book “America Unzipped: In Search of Sex and Satisfaction."

US: Date set for ground-breaking Californian civil liability case

A court date has finally been set in the high-profile 'Damages-style' case featuring the California ex-husband and wife who are suing each other for allegedly infecting the other with HIV without disclosing the risks.

The case of Bridget B. and John B. made headlines in July 2006 when the California state supreme court ruled that people can be sued for transmitting HIV to a sexual partner, even if they don’t know their HIV status – although the first lawsuit was filed as long ago as April 2002.

The article, below, from KNBC.com includes quite a lot of detail of their back story - which appears littered with inconsistencies on both sides – but also features old-style HIV reporting language, such as the erroneous phrase, 'full blown AIDS'.

I've no doubt that there will be plenty more to be written about this case in October...

Suit Approved For Woman Who Alleges Ex-Husband Gave Her AIDS
June 9, 2008

LOS ANGELES -- A judge cleared the way Monday for a woman to seek damages from her ex-husband, who she sued for allegedly giving her the AIDS virus.

The former couple, referred to in court papers as Bridget B. and John B., married in July 2000 and divorced in October 2003. Both were diagnosed with HIV in October 2000, although he had tested negative in June and August of that year.

Calling it "indeed a tragic case," Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu said the now-42-year-old woman had no reason to suspect her husband was responsible for her condition until November 2001 at the earliest, so she met the one-year statute of limitations to file her lawsuit when she did so in April 2002.

The woman's ex-husband maintained she had to have brought the case by October 2001, a year after she learned from a doctor that she had the AIDS virus. Doctors determined in January 2002 that John B. had full-blown AIDS, according to his ex-wife's court papers. However, he said after Monday's hearing -- in which he acted as his own attorney -- that his condition has improved and he no longer has full-blown AIDS.

John B., also 42, said he was disappointed with the judge's ruling and is hoping for a better outcome during the trial on his former wife's damage claims, set for Oct. 6. Bridget B. said she was pleased with getting over the initial hurdle in the case, but declined further comment.

One of her lawyers, Kathleen M. Grassini, said she was happy for her client."I think it was really important for him to have to come down and look her in the eye," Grassini said. "She trusted him and he destroyed that trust."

Testifying earlier Monday, Bridget B. said her husband's physician told her that her husband had previously tested negative, so she therefore believed she must have given him HIV.

"I felt like I was killing my husband," the woman said. "I knew for sure we were going to die." Her husband began talking of committing suicide, she testified.

The woman said that although she had never had unprotected sex with anyone other than her husband and had only two serious previous relationships, she did not know enough about HIV at the time to make herself question the doctor's conclusions. She said she thought she might have gotten the virus while she had a cut in her skin or even from getting bitten by an insect.

She said she and her husband made a contract with each other to work through their struggle together. With the help of her therapist, who told her that women seldom transmit the AIDS virus to men, Bridget B. began her own research on HIV. In the process, she also uncovered her husband's secret e-mails revealing homosexual relationships with men, another of her attorneys, said in his opening statement.

According to Bridget B.'s court papers, her ex-husband's secret e-mails are evidence of his "rampant, high-risk secret (homo)sexual lifestyle." The e-mails show he "actually acquired HIV through his high-risk sexual behavior," her lawsuit alleges.

The information led her to believe for the first time in November 2001 that her husband was responsible for their medical conditions, not her, her lawyers maintain.

John B. later admitted to her that he had two sexual relationships with male partners before their marriage, she said. He also had once confided in her that two men molested him when he was 15, she testified.

Cross-examined by her ex-husband as to why she didn't assume after her October 2000 diagnosis that he was the one who gave her the virus, she said it was because she believed in him.

"I just married my husband, and I wouldn't have married him if I didn't trust him," she said. "There was no reason to suspect him -- after his negative tests -- that he was the person."

The state Supreme Court ruled in July 2006 that Bridget B. could sue her former partner for allegedly infecting her with the virus that causes AIDS, even if he did not know he was HIV-positive at the time. But the high court also set limits on how much information she could get about his past sexual partners.

Bridget and John B. now blame the other for their conditions. She filed her lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court in April 2002, alleging negligence, fraud and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Earlier Monday, Treu denied John B.'s motion to delay the first trial for about three months so he could sell a condominium in order to pay for an attorney. Treu said John B. had not filed the proper motion and ordered the trial to go forward with him representing himself.

John B.'s previous attorneys recently withdrew from the case.

US: California doctor writes about disclosure dilemma

Interesting first-person article from a Californian doctor in the Los Angeles Times about the dilemma he faces when he knows one of his patients is exposing others to HIV.

HIV patient triggers a doctor's dilemma about confidentiality and safety
When a patient tests HIV-positive, a doctor has to navigate state law and medical ethics. It can be a rocky path.
By Marc Siegel
Special to The Times
May 12, 2008

My patient, a 26-year-old native of the Dominican Republic, had been seeing me for only a few months when I determined that he had been infected with HIV. He didn't seem surprised but was close-mouthed about his sexual orientation or where he might have contracted the virus.

I began to caution "Miguel" about unprotected sex, but he insisted that he didn't have, or plan to have, a lover.

As his T-cell counts dropped and his viral counts rose, I referred him to an infectious disease expert who began treatment with anti-retroviral drugs. After several months of this treatment, the counts stabilized, and he remained relatively healthy, though he was frequently depressed.

Four years later, he sent "a close friend" to see me. The friend, also a Dominican, had been brought into the country three years before by Miguel, who had then helped him establish citizenship. Now the friend was returning the favor by marrying Miguel's sister so she could become a U.S. citizen.

The friend, "Carlos," and the sister had come to see me at the same time. In my visit with her, she immediately revealed that the marriage was in name only and that her husband was gay. I saw Carlos next, and he openly acknowledged being gay and asked me to test him for HIV as part of his routine blood work.

The test came back positive, and I called him back to my office to discuss the results. During that visit, Carlos readily admitted that Miguel was his lover -- and feared that he had unintentionally put Miguel at risk. At that point, I realized Miguel had never told his lover that he had the virus.

The truth slowly dawned on Carlos as well. Although initially afraid that Miguel would be angry, he then recalled that he had tested negative for HIV just nine months before. "Did Miguel give me this?" he asked. "Does he have it?"

"You have to ask him," I replied. "I can't say."

Although Carlos may have thought I was communicating the necessary truth by not denying it, I not only owed my patients confidentiality, I was bound by law from revealing one patient's information to another.

Carlos was surprisingly calm, saying he still loved Miguel despite having been seduced into becoming his condom-less lover years before.

My office nurse, who had spoken with Carlos and knew the circumstances, described Miguel's apparent silence on his HIV status as attempted murder. That comment caused me to examine the laws regarding HIV disclosure more closely -- and my own actions.

My hospital's legal counsel informed me that I wasn't under any legal obligation to inform someone at risk, though I was required to report HIV patients and known partners to the health department. On the other hand, according to the American Medical Assn.'s code of ethics, "If a physician knows that a seropositive individual is endangering a third party, the physician should, within the constraints of the law (1) attempt to persuade the infected patient to cease endangering the third party; (2) if persuasion fails, notify authorities; and (3) if the authorities take no action, notify the endangered third party."

Ultimately, in Carlos' case, the point was moot -- it was too late to warn him. He already had acquired the virus.

The state law of New York, where I was practicing, allowed for prosecution of people who were deliberately spreading HIV, but for a physician to suspend his code of confidentiality and turn a patient in would seem to require certain knowledge that such an act was about to take place.

If I believed that Miguel intended to do this again with someone else, then I would have considered whether I had an obligation under the law to report it. But I didn't know. I still don't.

I felt horrible for the man manipulated into posing as a husband for his lover's sister while receiving HIV for histroubles.

I also felt uneasy in my role as messenger.

Meanwhile, I still had to be careful about what I said about Miguel's HIV, while he himself was forgiven and even loved. His sister, who remained my patient, luckily had been a wife in name only, so she was spared.

But I wondered -- and still do: What would I have done if I had surmised this situation before the virus had been transmitted?

I'd had many patients with HIV over the years, and had warned these patients on several occasions about the risk of transmission, but this was the first time I suspected one had refused all responsibility for his partner's safety.

If I had known in advance, would I have found the legal and ethical basis to warn Carlos? Or would I have had to let it happen?

Further, going forward, how can I find an effective way to warn potential victims if I don't always know who they are? Sometimes medicine is too complicated to be practiced fairly -- or with any moral gratification.

Dr. Marc Siegel is an internist and an associate professor of medicine at New York University's School of Medicine. He is also the author of "False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear." He can be reached at marc@doctorsiegel.com.

US: Further developments in California civil case

Further developments in the case of Bridget B and John B in California, whose civil case made headlines in 2006 when the California Supreme Court ruled that "constructive knowledge" of HIV risk meant that a person has a duty to disclose the possibility of having being infected with HIV to prospective sexual partners, even in the absence of a positive HIV-antibody test.

(For an overview, including a link to the actual ruling, visit this page at www.natap.org.)

You may recall the case: Bridget tested HIV-positive in September 2000, shortly before her husband's HIV-positive test. More than a year later, John told her he had had sex with men before and during their marriage.

The wife's suit claimed that John knew, or should have known, that he was infected. The court agreed, saying that people who engage in 'high-risk' sexual behaviour have the responsibility to warn their partners about the possibility of HIV infection.

The latest development is that Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu has ruled that John will have to disclose his sexual orientation in the long-delayed civil trial, which begins in February 2008.

The AP article (published in the San Jose Mercury News) is below.

Man accused of giving ex-wife HIV will have to reveal lifestyle

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Article Launched: 01/27/2008 03:02:59 AM PST

LOS ANGELES -- A judge has ruled a man accused of infecting his ex-wife with the AIDS virus will have to disclose his sexual orientation in an upcoming civil trial.

Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu has ruled that attorneys representing the man's ex-wife can use his e-mails as evidence of his "rampant, high-risk secret (homo)sexual lifestyle." The e-mails show he "actually acquired HIV through his high-risk sexual behavior," court documents show.

The former couple, referred to in court papers as Bridget B. and John B., married in July 2000 and divorced in October 2003. Both were diagnosed with HIV in October 2000, and doctors said in January 2002 that the husband had AIDS.

Both blame the other for their conditions.

The ex-wife filed her lawsuit in 2002, claiming negligence, fraud and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

The state Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the woman could sue her former partner for allegedly infecting her with HIV, even if he did not know he was HIV-positive at the time. But the high court also set limits on how much information she could get about his past sexual partners.

The trial will be split into two phases. The first trial, scheduled to begin next month, will deal with whether the ex-wife waited too long to file her lawsuit. If she prevails, a second trial will be held on the other claims.

US: HIV-positive California man accepts plea bargain to drop 'special AIDS enhancement'

An HIV-positive Northern Californian man has accepted a plea bargain 'deal' where he pleas no contest to a succession of serious charges, which could lead to 42 years in jail. In return, prosecutors have dropped the 'special AIDS enhancement' to the charges which would have added another three years to the sentence.

Edward Hosmun could receive up to 42 years in prison when he is sentenced in March.

Hosmun pleaded no contest to engaging in sex with an "incompetent" minor, two counts of committing a lewd act with a child and a separate felony charge of inducing a child to engage in a lewd act.

He also admitted to a "multiple victim" enhancement that makes a prison sentence in the case mandatory, and a second special allegation of providing a controlled substance to both victims.

In return for his pleas, prosecutors dropped an enhancement alleging Hosmun was aware he carried the AIDS virus when he committed the molestations.

Deputy district attorney Kelly Maloy said surprisingly, the special AIDS enhancement would only have increased the man's sentence by three years.

Full story in the Chico Enterprise Record.