Introduction
A majority of jurisdictions in the United States,
including Massachusetts and New Hampshire, strictly limit a plaintiff’s ability
to maintain a cause of action for emotional distress resulting from fear of
acquiring HIV or AIDS, otherwise known as “HIV/AIDS-phobia,” by imposing an
objective “actual exposure” standard for determining the cause of the emotional
distress. To meet this standard, a plaintiff who has not tested seropositive
must prove both a scientifically accepted method of transmission of the virus and
that the source of the allegedly transmitted blood or fluid was in fact
HIV-positive.
Silverware, handshakes, and toilet seats, oh my! Objective standard guards against compensation for
unrealistic fears
In the 2001 Massachusetts Appellate Division case Cole v.
D.J. Quirk, Inc., 2001 WL 705730 (Mass.App.Div. 2001), a husband and
wife who purchased a used car brought claims against the dealership for
negligent infliction of emotional distress after the husband pierced his finger
on a pair of surgical tweezers left in the car by its previous owner. The
plaintiffs subsequently learned that the previous owner was a physician and
found prescription scripts in the car with the words “viral,” “ELISA,”
“antibodies” and “specific toxicity,” causing them to fear that the surgical
tweezers had been contaminated with HIV. The husband never tested positive for
HIV, and the plaintiffs never had the tweezers tested to determine the presence
of HIV. The trial judge directed a verdict in favor of the defendants. The
Massachusetts Appellate Division, in a well-written opinion authored by former
Justice Daniel B. Winslow of the District Court’s Southern Appellate Division,
adopted the objective actual exposure standard of causation. The court,
affirming the directed verdict, determined that the plaintiffs failed to meet
their burden of proof at trial because they did not show that the source of the
allegedly transmitted blood or fluid was in fact HIV-positive.
Rest easy — Pandora’s box remains locked and
guarded
As Cole was a case of first impression in Massachusetts
on this issue, the court analyzed the holdings of other jurisdictions and
considered the two competing views regarding the proof of causation necessary
to establish a claim for HIV/AIDS-phobia: the objective “actual exposure”
standard and the subjective “reasonable fear” standard. Under the minority
reasonable fear standard, adopted in only a handful of jurisdictions, a
plaintiff who has not tested seropositive may recover damages for emotional
distress by proving a specific incident of potential exposure sufficient to
create a reasonable fear of having contracted the AIDS virus, even in the
absence of a proven source and channel of exposure.
The court recognized that many lay
persons, despite scientific proof to the contrary, continue to believe
that HIV can be transmitted through food, silverware, handshakes and toilet
seats. With this understanding, Cole explicitly rejected the minority
view because the reasonable fear standard weighs heavily against public policy
by stigmatizing persons infected with HIV, and it fails to guard against claims
for HIV/AIDS-phobia that are “trivial, evanescent, temporary, feigned, or
imagined.” Therefore, Cole does not preclude a plaintiff’s recovery for
emotional distress arising out of fear of acquiring HIV/AIDS, but it limits a
plaintiff’s ability to recover by objectively deciding which fears are
compensable in HIV/AIDS-phobia cases. By rejecting the subjective reasonable
fear standard, Massachusetts, like the majority of other jurisdictions that
have addressed this issue, has appropriately thrown away the key to Pandora’s Box, along with the potential of stigmatizing persons
infected with HIV.
Questions still remain, however. The Massachusetts
Appellate Division explained in Cole that both the reasonable
fear and actual exposure views are “tempered” in some jurisdictions by
application of a “window of recovery” that limits damages for emotional distress.
This limitation allows for recovery only until the plaintiff has had a
sufficient opportunity to determine with reasonable medical certainty that he
or she has not been exposed to or infected with HIV. The Cole
court did not address whether a claim for HIV/AIDS-phobia would be subject to
this type of limitation in Massachusetts.
Cole also left open the issue of how to handle
HIV/AIDS-phobia cases where the defendant destroys key evidence, such as a potentially-contaminated needle, prior to the evidence being
tested. The court in Cole did note, however, that some courts would apply
spoliation principles to presume that the alleged source of transmission was in
fact HIV positive and leave it to the defense to prove otherwise.
It’s objective! New Hampshire adopts “actual
exposure” standard in 2008
As recently as Sept. 12, 2008, New Hampshire Grafton
Superior Court, in Brocklehurst v. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center,
addressed the HIV/AIDS-phobia issue and also adopted the actual exposure
standard. There, the court granted summary judgment against a plaintiff who
claimed emotional distress resulting from a fear of acquiring HIV and/or
hepatitis. In adopting the actual exposure standard, the court agreed with the
reasoning of the Missouri Court of Appeals in Pendergist v. Pendergrass, 961
S.W.2d 919 (Mo. Ct. App. 1998), which when grappling with this issue offered
several reasons for preferring the actual exposure test: (1) it ensures that a
genuine basis for the fear exists and that the fear is not premised on public
misconceptions about AIDS, thereby preventing plaintiffs from opening ‘a
Pandora’s Box of AIDS-phobia claims’; (2) an actual exposure rule preserves an objective
component in emotional distress cases necessary to ensure stability,
consistency and predictability in the disposition of those cases; and (3) the
rule ensures that victims who are exposed to HIV or actually contract HIV as a
result of a defendant’s negligence are compensated for their emotional
distress.
Conclusion
The overwhelming majority of jurisdictions (including
Massachusetts and New Hampshire) require that a claimant prove actual exposure
to HIV in order to make out a prima facie case involving
incidents of “needle sticks” or other penetrations of bodily integrity.
Consequently, when such events occur, care should be taken to identify and test
source instruments that caused the insult. In the absence of such evidence, it
will prove difficult or impossible for a plaintiff to recover.
Martin C. Foster is a senior partner at Foster & Eldridge LLP in Cambridge, where his practice focuses on the defense of medical providers in malpractice actions. He is also chairman of the Board of Trustees of New England Law Boston.
Stephen M. Fiore is an associate at Foster & Eldridge LLP, where he specializes in the defense of medical providers and provides risk management advice to health care professionals.
Kerry A. Sousa is a J.D. candidate at New England Law Boston (2010) and a graduate of Boston University (B.A. 2005). She is also the law clerk for 12 attorneys at Foster & Eldridge LLP.