Contaminated Medical Instrument: Patient Can Sue For Fear Of Disease From Actual Exposure
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
January 1998
Quick Summary: Unfounded fear of contracting disease is no basis for a lawsuit against a hospital. If a patient is actually exposed to contagious disease, like hepatitis or HIV from sub-standard hospital practices, the patient can sue for emotional distress, even if the patient did not actually contract the disease in question. APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS, 1997.
The patient sued the hospital for extreme mental anguish claiming he had been exposed to hepatitis A, B and C and HIV because a non-sterile, contaminated colonoscope was used on him.
The hospital petitioned the judge to throw out the case, and the the judge did so without hearing any evidence one way or the other whether the patient had actually been exposed to disease.
The Appellate Court of Illinois ruled this was not the proper way to analyze the issues presented in this case.
Long before the age of HIV the courts were ruling that a patient’s fear of disease without proof of actual exposure is no basis for a lawsuit. Fear of disease from actual exposure, however, even without contracting the disease, can be the basis for a suit, the courts have said. It was not clear if this patient had proof he was exposed to hepatitis or HIV, but it was ruled the judge should have let him present his evidence. Natale vs. Hospital, 685 N.E. 2d 971 (Ill. App., 1997).