Blood Transfusion: Patient's Disease Phobia Not Grounds For Lawsuit, Court Rules
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
June 1996
Unjustified fear of disease contagion from a blood transfusion is not grounds for a patient's civil lawsuit against a hospital, according to a recent ruling of the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division.
The blood administered to this patient had tested negative for HIV and for hepatitis C, according to the hospital’s lab records. After the patient voiced his concerns to the hospital over his fears of disease contagion from the transfusion, the donor was located and tested. The donor proved negative for HIV and hepatitis C. The patient himself also tested negative, well after the transfusion.
Without objective medical evidence upholding a reasonable likelihood of infection, a patient’s "disease phobia" claim is considered by the law to be too remote and speculative to support an award of damages in a civil case, and is not compensable, according to the court.
There were also allegations the transfusion was medically contraindicated. Although the record is sketchy as to why, the case was bound over for trial as a medical negligence case on this issue alone.
Sargeant vs. Hospital, 635 N.Y.S. 2d 8 (A.D., 1995).