HIV: Court Says No Legal Duty To Advise Spouse She Is At-Risk
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
August 1998
Quick Summary: There is no right to sue for failing to notify someone whose spouse/partner is at risk from behavior but has not tested positive for HIV.
State law draws the line between medical confidentiality and notification of spouses/partners of persons who test positive. SUPREME COURT OF TEXAS, 1998.
After her husband died of AIDS, the widow sued a medical facility for failing to notify her she was at risk of contracting HIV. According to the Supreme Court of Texas, she twice tested negative for HIV in the late 1980’s, but she was never tested again, fearing she would learn she was HIV positive.
The husband was a hemophiliac who had received blood transfusions in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. In the late 1980’s the medical center began trying to reach persons who had received blood transfusions to advise them to be tested for HIV immediately and then at least yearly on a follow-up basis. He was contacted, but he never came in to the center for testing.
Under state law, a spouse or partner was to be notified only after the other spouse/partner had tested positive. Until that time, the other spouse/partner’s status as an at risk individual because of a certain feature of his or her own medical history was covered by medical confidentiality and could not be divulged to anyone, the court ruled. Thus the medical center could not be sued for failing to tell someone she was at risk for HIV, her spouse/partner never actually having tested positive.
Health v. Garcia, 964 S.W. 2d 940 (Tex., 1998).