A Portland, Ore., woman was awarded $900K in a suit against a man she said intentionally gave her herpes.
WEDNESDAY, June 6, 2012 — An Oregon jury awarded nearly a million dollars last week to a woman who said she had been intentionally infected with genital herpes by a man she was dating and had one sexual encounter with.
The woman, 49, who filed her suit under a pseudonym, testified in court last week that the painful outbreaks had rendered her depressed.
The claimant said she met the man, a 69-year-old retired dentist, through the dating Web site eHarmony. They had sex on their fourth date. The dentist only told the woman he had herpes after they had sex, while they were lying in bed. She immediately asked him to leave. He testified that he believed he wasn't contagious at the time because he wasn't experiencing an active outbreak, the Associated Press reported.
“I told the jury he’s dangerous, and I believe he is,” Randall Vogt, the woman's attorney, told the Associated Press. Vogt said that her client had handed the man a condom before they had intercourse, but he did not wear it.
The woman had been tested for STDs a few months before having intercourse with the man and gotten a clean bill of health. Two weeks after they had sex, on May 25, 2010, she tested positive for herpes.
Usually, it takes between two weeks to three months after exposure to herpes for antibodies to appear in a blood test.
Vogt said her client lost her job because of depression related to the condition and dropped efforts to find a husband, her main reason for trying out the dating Web site.
Legal Cases Involving Herpes Are Unusual
While there have been plenty of lawsuits accusing celebrities such as Liza Minnelli and Robin Williams of spreading herpes to their partners, lawsuits that make it to trial are extremely rare, according to the Associated Press. The award given last week is believed to be the largest for a case such as this in Oregon. In 2008, Karly Rossiter, a woman from Muscatine, Iowa, was awarded $1.5 million after claiming that her then-boyfriend knowingly transmitted HPV to her.
The attorney in the Oregon case, Vogt, told the Associated Press that many people don't go to court to make claims about sexually transmitted diseases out of embarrassment and because defendants often do not have the money to pay a potential judgment.
Vogt's client's suit alleged negligence and battery. The jury found the man 75 percent responsible for negligence, and the woman 25 percent accountable. The defendant's attorney, Shawn Lillegren, argued that the woman was negligent because she did not demand that his client wear a condom. The jurors determined that the retired dentist had committed battery because he intentionally had sex with his date without telling her about the risks, in spite of the potential harm, according to the Associated Press report.
“We all felt he should have told her,” juror Noah Brimhall told The Oregonian. “He had the responsibility to tell her.”
About one in six adults in the United States has genital herpes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Genital herpes, a virus transmitted through sexual contact, has no cure, but symptoms can be managed with medications. Contrary to common belief, transmission can occur whether or not the infected person has visible sores, according to the CDC. Symptoms may be dormant for months or years at a time, but during an outbreak symptoms include itching, tingling, redness of the skin, and sores in and around the genitals.