Here's an odd one. An HIV+ woman is suing her ex-husband for not
passing on the virus to her.
Unfortunately the article doesn't specifically mention whether the
husband is HIV+ now, however he did test HIV- before the marriage, and
during the marriage around the same time the wife tested HIV+.
I think the wife is simply looking for someone to blame, and I have no
sympathy for her. This case seems to go against the old mantra that
'anyone can get HIV.' However, as we know, that lie has been laid to
rest now.
<http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hiv10-2008jun10,0,5845160.story>:
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In tearful testimony, the woman known in court documents as "Bridget
B." choked up as she described the first time she met her ex-husband,
the man she is now suing for infecting her with HIV.
After a six-year legal battle that has thrust the couple's sexual
history into the public record and taken them before the California
Supreme Court, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Monday
that Bridget B.'s case, in which she accuses her husband of fraud and
negligence, will be tried before a jury in October.
In a hearing Monday, the plaintiff testified that the couple had a
loving courtship and a storybook wedding, and that she had no reason
to suspect that her then-husband may have kept from her the fact that
he may have been exposed to HIV in the past.
"I just married my husband, I wouldn't have married him if I didn't
trust him," said the 42-year-old Los Angeles resident under
cross-examination from her husband, John B., who was acting as his own
attorney because he can no longer afford to pay his lawyer. "I was
operating on responsibility rather than blame," she said.
Bridget B. said that after she tested positive for the virus in
October 2000, she was guilt-ridden for more than a year thinking she
had given it to her husband. Her husband tested negative for HIV
before their honeymoon and again around the time that Bridget B.
tested positive.
But in early 2002, Bridget B. discovered that her husband had visited
websites with explicit homosexual content, and found e-mails showing
that he had unprotected sex with men he met on the Internet, her
attorney Lars Johnson told the court. Her husband also admitted to
having had sex with two men prior to their marriage, Bridget B. said
in her testimony. She filed a lawsuit seeking damages in April of that
year.
The case went before the California Supreme Court in 2006, where
justices ruled that people could be held liable for failing to inform
a new partner of previous risky sexual activity. In the same ruling,
the court said Bridget B. was entitled to her husband's sexual history
in pretrial discovery, but only for a six-month period leading up to
his last negative HIV test. False negatives are possible up to six
months after a person has been exposed to HIV.
At issue before the court Monday was whether the lawsuit was brought
within the one-year statute of limitations.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu called the case
"tragic" and ruled that the plaintiff had justifiably trusted her
husband until she had a reason not to.
"She really believed in her marriage vows," Treu said.
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<http://www.hiv-poz.co.uk/>
4,897 days and counting...
