Anybody had experience with legal issues?

[rodeoqueen]

My story's a long one so I'll cut to the chase. Of everything I've read here I haven't seen anything concering legal issues. Not only is it ilegal to spread HIV/AIDS KNOWINGLY (of course), but spreading HSV2 is also ilegal as I'm sure most of you know.

I've read some pretty devestating things that people have done to ya'll. I don't really know for sure if the guy that gave this to me knew he had it before he got to me or not, but his actions and words sure say that he did. I'm busy with school so I've kind of put all this on the back burner until I finish this semester, but I've recently found out that he's spreading this! I won't stand for it. I will find out about my issues (whether he knew or not) later, but for right now I'm ready to bust him for spreading it. I have counselors working with me right now.

Has anybody else here tried to prosecute? If anybody has any information that could help I'm all ears.

Thanks

[newworld1]

This could be very difficult depending on the details of your situation. The biggest challenge would be proving that you didn't have it prior to meeting him. I read alot on this recently and it is very difficult because of latency and diagnosis timeframes. Unless you could prove that you didn't have it and that he maliciously, knowingly infected you, it may be difficult. Are there other ways to stop what he's doing?

[rodeoqueen]

I contacted the health department in his area and they are going to send him AND his parents a letter requesting that he come in to get tested. The problem is I'm sure he won't show up, but I'll deal with that later. I just have to see what happens. The lady at the health department is going to keep me updated.

Anyway, I know what you are saying about proving the issue. I know for a fact he gave it to me. What pisses me off is how nonchalant he is about the whole thing. He actually laughed!!!! He's not sick so he don't care. Meanwhile, he's trying to ruin as many lives as possible and I'm not putting up with that crap. I don't want this to happen to anybody else and beins he's not telling his partners I just couldn't live with myself if I didn't try to protect them. I wish somebody had tried to tell me! I'll keep ya'll updated.

BTW, since there aren't strong laws against this, I've decided to make some. The only thing is that I have no earthly idea how to do that and I'll probably need a lawyer or something. That means I'll have to wait until I'm out of school before I can afford one. Somebody's got to do something. It might as well be me.

[marriedlady]

Hey there rodeo, I too am in the same situation, the guy who gave it to me is knowingly spreading the virus to many girls as he is incredibly permiscuous. Just today i made a report with the victom service unit about this but they say there is no known criminal charge for this and that it doesn't look like mr. H spreader is doing anything illegal. I want him stopped from being able to spread this nasty disease to others. I called the local health department here and they refuse to help me. I live in Ontario Canada maybe you are not from here and the rules are different for your area. Any help you can give me to have this man stopped would be really appreciated.

[rodeoqueen]

I just sent you a PM. For everyone else's information--- I suggest contacting current and future partners. Just be very careful how you tell them. Yes, you might embarrass yourself, but for me it was worth it.

I had a nice talk with the mother of the current victim. She understood and said she'd tell her daughter. Really that's all you can do for the future victims is to inform them. You can bet a million that if he/she didn't tell you then they're not telling anybody else. Imagine how debted you'd feel to somebody who called you and saved your tail from the position you're in now. I feel like if I'm taking responsibility i.e. abstinence, then he should too.

[ardent]

Poll: telling new lovers of ur old HSV+ partner

Telling the partners of a person you were once sexually involved with about the danger of their contracting herpes is very tricky.

How far does your responsibility and civic duty extend? Is your motivation really altruistic, or are you trying to:

1. break up your old lover's new relationship

2. get back at the new partner for having attracted your lover

3. meddle in your old lover's life and continue to have a foothold in his/ her life

???

I'm very curious about what y'all think.

Here are some hypothetical situations that start with the assumption that your old lover has herpes. In each one, where do you draw the line of personal responsibility? Are your your old lover's partners' keeper?

1. You and your long term mate have split up. Your former mate is now dating very actively and you sometimes run into her and her "flavor of the day".

2. You find out your mate is sleeping with someone else despite having told you otherwise. You suspect they're not using condoms 100% of the time. You know this someone else's address and phone #.

3. You meet someone who makes you see great balls of fire but unfortunately after just one rockin' encounter you find out the hard way the person has asymptomatic herpes and now you have it too, except yours isn't as painless or hard-to-miss. You tell your new friend, who promptly decides to pin the guilt "tail" on your ass and acts outraged that dirty you did the deed with clean him and dared give him the HSV cooties. Your no longer friend has a long term girlfriend. You knew about her when you got busy with him, but now you're wracked with righteous rage and ready to tell her all about his "gift that keeps on giving".

Write about your personal experience with any of these situations. Would love to know your thoughts!

[Friend of H girl]

well RQ,

[tohealth]

Granted this original post is quite old; but I suppose I'm seeing it for the first time because it jumped to the top of the list after the recent post above. Sooo...I don't know if the original posters are reading this.

Yes, I have experience with legal issues and sued the person who infected me.

Yes, in the United States knowingly spreading herpes is a tort--virtually no matter what state you live in--and yes, you can bring legal action against the party. In fact, if you were married and had an affair with somebody who knowingly had herpes, and they infected you, not only could you bring suit against that person, but your husband could too in a separate suit if you subsequently gave it to him unknowingly during your affair.

It is not necessarily as insurmountable as some may think, but inexperienced and frankly, lazy lawyers can make you think it is: the standard of proof in a civil case is a preponderance of evidence, not beyond reasonable doubt. Proving the person knowingly infected you can be sufficiently established by some discovery: a good lawyer will subpeona the person's pharmacy/prescription records; health records (including mental health records); and potentially access the health records of sexual partners of others who had sexual contact with this person. You might be surprised at just how much personal information a lawyer has the right to access under discovery rules. If the person is nonchalant about infecting you, they can sometimes be easily witnessed by others if not outright tape recorded admitting they did it. Also, if your first outbreak is really bad, your doctor may diagnose it as a primary infection, as in your first exposure to herpes. This essentially "dates" the time frame for your infection. If you find medical records of the person indicating the existence of herpes dated earlier than your "primary infection" was diagnosed, this goes to establishing who gave it to whom, but your lawyer has to understand this (so many of them arent literate in scientific topics and dont understand anything but law).

Try to find a previous case in your state similar to yours. Find the lawyer or law firm who won that case and ask them to look at your case or to recommend somebody or some law firm, as perhaps a start. Bigger law firms are better generally, because they can access more case databases than lone practitioners and because they can access the most recent cases (lone practitioners often rely on books that aren't updated daily/weekly to reflect the most current legal decisions and case history the way that computer databases are). I think lone practitioners often only own one set of books--for their state, and have no idea what is happening in neighboring states with cases like yours. Bigger law firms can also draw from how other states in their circuit have dealt with cases like yours because they can access cases for all jurisdictions.

[Unbelievable]

Personally.... I am not happy that I was given HSV2 but... I made the choice to have sex with someone... so I am responsible for that decision... the legal system isn't going to make the virus go away...

[tohealth]

You are ignoring a larger issue, however. The legal system won't change your sexual health status, but your taking legal action may prevent another person from becoming infected by the person who infected you. If the last person who was infected had taken legal action against your partner, it may have spared you. When nobody ever takes legal action, it leaves those who deceive others to behave without concern for any consequences. Many are ignorant and do not even know that they can be sued.

The person who infected me was ruined reputationally, and financially greatly liable and inconvenienced. I do not have any evidence that they had any sexual partners after my case was filed (who would chance that without being suicidal?); in fact I am certain that in the 6 years that they lived afterwards, they were without any willing sexual partners, because of how public the case made against them became.

Lawsuits work as deterrents, and as important psychological reparations, as well as compensatory mechanisms. In fact, there is nothing particularly "responsible" about deciding not to sue a person against whom a case of knowingly infecting another can be proven.

[Cherry Cola]

I think anyone that knowingly spreads a disease is nasty and deserves to be sued and stopped.In many cases it can be very hard to prove who gave you the herpes though.So many people have it and don't even know it.

For me at first when I found out I thought it was a bf who cheated on me,I wasn't able to ask him b/c we lost touch.Then after I learned more about it I began to think it was a diferent x bf.I remember a big fight with him where he was yelling at me cuz he was sick,saying I was a carrier and all this b/c he had gotten mono and a rash in his genitals but he never said it was herpes or another STD.So I will never know who gave it to me or if I was a carrier or anything.

I'd really hate for a former lover of mine to try and sue me for giving them herpes.I hope that I never have and never will give anyone herpes.Now that I know I have it I do have the safer sex/herpes talk and make sure they understand the risk.

[tohealth]

I understand. There are a lot of people who have herpes and don't know it. But there may be just as many if not more people who know they have something too. For example, all the posters on this forum had symptoms and know they have it. All the drugs now advertised on TV are because so many people know they have it. There are also people who can figure out the time frame of their infection (and therefore the person who infected them) because the first infection can look very different (with different symptoms) from the regular outbreaks. This is how doctors can distinguish between a primary (first time) infection and all the others.

[BiteHerpes]

I?d like to continue this post by quoting tohealth and I have a couple of follow up questions. Here is a quote ?Yes, in the United States knowingly spreading herpes is a tort--virtually no matter what state you live in--and yes, you can bring legal action against the party??

1. Is there any specific law and if there is ? what exactly does it say and where do I find it?

2. Is there any difference in interpreting this law when it comes to HSV-1 vs. HSV-2?

3. Let?s say I have HSV-1 (I am going to do more tests to know for sure) and I will tell my partner that I have it and at that time my partner will decide that it?s worth it to continue relationship. What is going to happen if some time later my partner will get infected from me (even though I never had any symptoms) and will decide to sue me and lie in the court that there was never a warning from me? Does it make sense to put everything in paper and did anybody try it? As odd as it sounds ? how else can you be protected from getting sued? The problem with it also that proposing to document that she/he were told about your condition will probably be a big turn off for your partner.

I am just trying to understand how I can continue dating, if it will be even possible. I do not even recall having an outbreak and now it feels like I have a moral obligation to talk about possibility of infecting my partner. I am getting used to that idea, but it still feels weird when you do not even feel that you are infected with anything.

Thanks.

[tohealth]

1. Is there any specific law and if there is ? what exactly does it say and where do I find it?

The law is an entire body of law (rather than a verbatim statute). It is defined by 4 elements: injury, duty, breach, and causation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort

• 1st, there must be an identifiable injury?in this case, that would be your partner getting herpes after having sex with you.
  2nd, you, X, must have a duty to Y?in this case, you have a legally cognizable duty to all of your sexual partners to inform them of potentially communicable diseases with which you (a) KNOW you are infected, ( SHOULD KNOW you are infected, or © have reason to believe you might be infected, before engaging in sex.
  3rd, to get into trouble in the law?s eyes you must breach that duty--in this case, breaching would mean that you did not take what the law calls ?due care? in preventing a sexual partner from becoming infected: lack of due care can include (a) failure to disclose your health status, and ( failure to use protection that is known to be effective at protecting against transmission (there really isn?t any, one could argue). But it could also include, for example, becoming voluntarily intoxicated on an occasion where sexual conduct was foreseeable, and recklessly engaging in spontaneous uninformed sex. ?Due care? is defined as that which an ordinarily prudent person would be expected to take.
  4th, your breach must be the actual reason for party Y?s injury. This would mean that Y did in fact get herpes from you and not someone else.

When these 4 elements are met, you have committed a tort (either an intentional tort, or a negligence tort in this case) and are liable to party Y.

2. Is there any difference in interpreting this law when it comes to HSV-1 vs. HSV-2?

No. They're both STDs that cause injury.

3. Let's say I have HSV-1 (I am going to do more tests to know for sure) and I will tell my partner that I have it and at that time my partner will decide that it's worth it to continue relationship. What is going to happen if some time later my partner will get infected from me (even though I never had any symptoms) and will decide to sue me and lie in the court that there was never a warning from me? Does it make sense to put everything in paper and did anybody try it? As odd as it sounds how else can you be protected from getting sued? The problem with it also that proposing to document that she/he were told about your condition will probably be a big turn off for your partner.

Excellent questions:

If your partner knows you have herpes and consents to have sex and contracts it from you, you are not liable because they have assumed the risk. However, if they try to lie and say you didn't tell them, it's tricky. To get around that and the awkwardness of writing a contract before every sexual act, I suggest this: ALWAYS take your new sexual partner to your doctor for a joint counseling visit, or go with them to their doctor before any sex is engaged in. This way, they get informed in a caring way by a professional about the risks, and you get a witness (the doctor) to the fact that you have told them your health status (of course a cheaper, cruder alternative is to audio record your in-person (non phone) conversation when you disclose your health status to them.)

I am just trying to understand how I can continue dating, if it will be even possible. I do not even recall having an outbreak and now it feels like I have a moral obligation to talk about possibility of infecting my partner. I am getting used to that idea, but it still feels weird when you do not even feel that you are infected with anything.Thanks.

But that's a dangerous feeling. You should never take comfort in how uninfected you feel. Your body has built up an immune response. If you are a straight male, you are not going to have as severe a response as a female on average, and know that her body is just not acclimated to your virus. People fly to another country and drop dead 2 weeks later because they aren't acclimated to the local disease distribution or some "simple" microorganisms, even though the native people are fine and they themselves were fine back in their native country. So it's not about how healthy you feel, but whether your partner's body can defend itself against what you have. When it comes to viruses, your body is another country to your partner's body.

[seekingjustice]

There is hope

Thank you for this posting it has been very helpful to me. I'm in a legal battle with the X and am suing him as well.

I appreciate this forum and posting.

with my sincerest gratitude for the knowledge I derived from this posting.

Truly grateful,

seeking justice

[ski junkie]

I would love to sue ! I was always very careful. Never had sex with anyone I didn't know well. Even then we used condoms after the sex talk. Then I met someone I loved we dated a while had the sex talk he said he did't have anything. We moved in together, and stopped using condoms. Bam. I was very sick. So sick I was almost put in the hospital.

He then said he lied. He didn't think it would matter.

I would love to sue and win...for the payment of my health care for the rest of my life. I had been on Valtrex at $700.00 a month!! From my own pocket.

[raven2]

do the right thing

My story's a long one so I'll cut to the chase. Of everything I've read here I haven't seen anything concering legal issues. Not only is it ilegal to spread HIV/AIDS KNOWINGLY (of course), but spreading HSV2 is also ilegal as I'm sure most of you know.

I've read some pretty devestating things that people have done to ya'll. I don't really know for sure if the guy that gave this to me knew he had it before he got to me or not, but his actions and words sure say that he did. I'm busy with school so I've kind of put all this on the back burner until I finish this semester, but I've recently found out that he's spreading this! I won't stand for it. I will find out about my issues (whether he knew or not) later, but for right now I'm ready to bust him for spreading it. I have counselors working with me right now.

Has anybody else here tried to prosecute? If anybody has any information that could help I'm all ears.

Thanks

You should contact the p.d. r s, office and advise them of this.

[raven2]

I would love to sue ! I was always very careful. Never had sex with anyone I didn't know well. Even then we used condoms after the sex talk. Then I met someone I loved we dated a while had the sex talk he said he did't have anything. We moved in together, and stopped using condoms. Bam. I was very sick. So sick I was almost put in the hospital.

He then said he lied. He didn't think it would matter.

I would love to sue and win...for the payment of my health care for the rest of my life. I had been on Valtrex at $700.00 a month!! From my own pocket.

Call an attorney, quit waisting time

[Friend of H girl]

Anything new here??

[Alyangel88]

I am going through it too

I know some of you are saying that she made the choice to sleep with him. If he didn't know and had no idea then she would be equally responsible but when someone knows THEY have it, it is THEIR responsibility to tell you.

I just found out my now ex boyfriend cheated on me with his ex. She sent me and him a message on facebook explaining that he told her we were broken up and she found out he lied and thought I should know whats going on. I then told her how I can't believe he would put both our health at risk! Sleeping with me then her then me then her, I have had friends get STDS that way but were lucky it was chlamydia and curable. She then told me omg he didn't tell you he gave me herpes when he cheated on me about 5 yrs ago. I felt so sick. I confronted him via text message. He said yes he did KNOW and never told me acted like he was clean and had unprotected sex even though he did know and said I'm sorry but I don't get nauseated or sick and you can't die from it so you will be fine if you got it. I have the texts proving he knew I took screen shots of it from my iphone and saved all the texts. I am getting tested Tuesday, valentines day that is the soonest they can get me in. I have no symptoms but I am wondering if this is illegal even if I don't end up having it, he needs to be stopped from knowingly doing this to someone else. What steps can I take what should I do?

[matrix2]

ok so everyone agrees that if they knowingly give it to you that is wrong but I'm sorry in todays day and age and especially in developed countries how do people not know if they have an std!!! so fucking what if you have no symptoms if you take the risk of having sex with any one with out a condom then you go get tested strait after!!! so i think anyone who is stupid enough and ignorant enough to pass it on should be liable and held accountable!!!! we all get caught up in the heat of the moment for fuck sake we are only human but if everyone who had unprotected sex simply got tested after then maybe it wouldn't get passed around so easily and that stupid ignorant 80% of people who were to dumb to know what they had simply new by getting an all to easy sexual health check just think of the grief that could have been spared. my giver is either to dumb, or he already knew but chose to ignore what he had but I'm going after him and that legal advise in the previous post has just fuelled the fire more

[Tylerc22]

Matrix, STD testing is NOT mandatory, everyone who is engaging in sex should be tested but they don't. We can complain in here that they should but people don't get tested regularly.

[firedawn]

I apologize in advance...but I really get sad reading this. Perhaps it's because I just don't understand why someone would knowingly spread this virus around. My giver did not tell me, I used protection, I made a choice to have sex with him...I would never even consider suing him. That, to me, just seems like a silly waste of time. It's something that happened, something I have to deal with and that is ok...I feel badly for having it at times however, I think I would feel much worse trying to vengefully ruin someone else's life for a choice that I made and a choice that I can't take back..if anything - this made me realize a lot of things in my life that I needed to change.

[Vidhya]

I apologize in advance...but I really get sad reading this. Perhaps it's because I just don't understand why someone would knowingly spread this virus around. My giver did not tell me, I used protection, I made a choice to have sex with him...I would never even consider suing him. That, to me, just seems like a silly waste of time. It's something that happened, something I have to deal with and that is ok...I feel badly for having it at times however, I think I would feel much worse trying to vengefully ruin someone else's life for a choice that I made and a choice that I can't take back..if anything - this made me realize a lot of things in my life that I needed to change.

No wonder you get sad reading this. What a mature opinion and approach to the problem!

[LisaLu2]

I'm trying to sue, somehow...I am certain many of my legal problems stem...

I probably contracted this nasty virus from being raped and the rape test kit did not, to my knowledge, contain this test. The rapist broke into kill me and did this instead...though I won my life back but what this town did to me makes me wonder every day if I should have died the abuse has been so horrible and for 26 years now. I was called a whore and the inconclusive police report made its way 11 years later into a custody issue where a bad politician used it to gain black votes in the community. My assailant was black and set free by police negligence...I have since been mercilessly misdiagnosed and all my children stolen...no attorney will take my case and no agency or monitor of these criminals do their jobs either. I have a case, boy do I but no attorney will touch this one, not yet...like I said " I want to sue" boy do I. Need an attorney...sounds like I'm not the only one...you would not believe the cruelty here...omg!