Woman Sues Ex-Fiance's Parents for Allegedly Hiding Their Son's HIV
A woman sued her fiance's parents for allegedly hiding that their son had HIV.
Nov. 27, 2007 — -- When should a person reveal that a loved one has HIV or AIDS?
That is the question at the center of a lawsuit pending before the Illinois Supreme Court, which has many AIDS activists taking the side of a couple accused of hiding their son's HIV status from his fiancee.
A jury in Chicago awarded the fiancee, identified in court papers only as Jane Doe, $2 million in 2004, after she contracted an aggressive form of the disease. An appellate court reversed the jury's decision late last year, ruling that it was the woman's responsibility to get tested earlier.
The lawsuit appears to be one of the few cases in the country that tries to hold a family member responsible for not disclosing that a relative has HIV or AIDS. It highlights a potential conflict between guarding personal privacy and protecting someone from contracting the often-fatal disease.
Elizabeth and Kirkpatrick Dilling denied knowing their son had HIV until shortly before his death in 1999 and said they never lied to his fiancee about his health.
"Typically, confidentiality laws are very protective of HIV status," in order to encourage people to get tested and protect them against discrimination, said Lance Gable, who teaches public health law at Wayne State University School of Law. "That can be at odds with another important goal, which is to prevent the spread of HIV."
If the jury's verdict is upheld by the state Supreme Court, public health law experts say, it could change the legal obligations of a broad group of people in Illinois who know someone who is HIV positive. The ruling would likely be limited, though, because Doe says she specifically asked Elizabeth Dilling whether her son had HIV and says that Dilling lied, which she denies.
"We've developed a very exact, precise law about when a person's HIV status can and cannot be disclosed," said Ann Hilton Fisher, director of the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago, which has intervened on behalf of the Dillings. "If the court reverses this decision, it would really undo that."
Albert Dilling met his fiancee in April 1996, through a personal ad. After a few months, they decided to get married and began having unprotected sex, according to court papers. Though Dilling, then 41, already had HIV, he never told his fiancee, court papers say, and she probably contracted the disease in mid-1996.
