Court Weighs Parents’ Duty to Disclose Son's HIV
The Illinois Supreme Court will consider whether to affirm a $2 million award to a Chicago-area woman who claims her fiancé’s parents lied about his HIV status.
The Jane Doe plaintiff contends she did not get early treatment after she contracted HIV from her fiancé because his parents, Elizabeth and Kirkpatrick Dilling, lied about their son’s health, ABC News reports. Now the infection has progressed and harmed her immune system.
An Illinois appeals court had overturned the $2 million award, saying the plaintiff had the responsibility to get tested and she had failed to prove the parents knew about the infection.
For their part, the Dillings claim they had no knowledge their son had the disease until the last days of his life. AIDS activists say that even if they had known, Illinois confidentiality laws barred them from speaking, the Arlington Heights, Ill.-based Daily Herald reports.
In oral arguments before the Illinois Supreme Court, the Dillings’ lawyer argued the justices should not convert a moral duty to disclose to a legal one.
