Supreme Court takes $2 million away from fiancée infected with AIDS

SPRINGFIELD - A woman whose now-dead fiancé infected her with AIDS cannot collect $2 million from his parents for possibly misleading her about their son's health, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled today.

The justices said the infected woman never did prove she reasonably relied on the parents in making health decisions, and based on the facts, should have realized something was amiss and she was at risk of getting a sexually transmitted disease by engaging in unprotected sex with the man.

In addition, the state's high court said the fraud laws under which the case was filed and advanced, were never meant to cover personal relationships and should be limited to commercial dealings.

The ruling overturns a $2 million award to the woman, whose identity has been kept secret because it's illegal to disclose when someone has HIV or AIDS.

In fact, one of the key questions in the case was whether the parents, if they indeed knew their son had AIDS, had a legal responsibility to tell his fiancée - or at least not mislead her - that outweighed their son's legal right to have his HIV status remain confidential.

However, the court said the woman never proved the parents indeed knew all long their son had AIDS and misled her about it.

According to court records, the two met via a personal ad in April 1996. He was 41. She was 44. She'd tested negative for HIV in 1991 as part of an insurance physical. He'd apparently known since 1992 that he was HIV positive but didn't tell her.

After a few months of dating, the couple was in love, talking of marriage and babies and first engaged in unprotected sex in August 1996.

That same month, she first noticed her fiancé appearing unsteady on his feet. The next month, she experienced flu-like symptoms, often associated with the first onset of HIV infection. She did not go to a doctor.

Over the following months and years, her fiancé's health would dramatically worsen while the woman was repeatedly told by his parents, one of which was a prominent food and drug attorney, that he was suffering from heavy metal poisoning and, later, Lyme Disease. The parents were handling their son's care and paying his bills.

Meanwhile, the woman's health also deteriorated. By 1999 her hair had begun falling out, her gums were bleeding and sores were developing on her skin, all of which she attributed to the stress of caring for her ailing fiancé.

It wasn't until November 1999 that the woman, at a doctor visit with her fiancé, learned that that man she'd been with for more than three years was HIV positive. He died a month later. She also tested positive and medical professionals testified she likely was infected back in 1996.

Initially, the woman sued her dead fiancé's estate only to find he had nothing. She then sued his parents, acknowledging that it was their son who infected her, probably before she even met them, but their lies caused her infection to remain undetected and untreated and led to full-blown AIDS.

A Cook County jury held the parents liable and awarded the woman $2 million. An appeals court overturned the verdict and award, saying it was unrealistic for the woman to base health decision on her fiancé's parents, who weren't medical professionals, especially when she could easily have been tested.

The Illinois Supreme Court agreed with the appellate court that the jury award should be overturned and then went a step further in clarifying that state fraud laws should not be applied to personal relationships.