Woman Wins $1.5M Award in STD Transmission Case

In what may be one of the larger verdicts of its kind, an Iowa jury has awarded $1.5 million to a woman who sued a man for infecting her with a sexually transmitted disease after telling her he was disease-free.

Karly Rossiter, 25, has been diagnosed with both strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), one of which causes genital warts and the other cell abnormalities that can lead to cervical cancer. In a petition filed in March 2007, she alleged that Dr. Alan Evans, a Muscatine, Iowa, dentist, infected her during their 18-month relationship and failed to warn her to take appropriate steps to protect herself from infection.

Evans denied having HPV and Rossiter was not able to prove he actually knew he was infected. The FDA has not approved an HPV test for men and some men may have the virus without developing symptoms.

But after more than 10 hours of deliberations, a Muscatine County District Court jury last week found Evans liable for negligent transmission of HPV, awarding Rossiter $700,000 in compensatory damages and $800,000 in punitive damages.

“That's a lot of money for Iowa,” says Rossiter attorney Jeffrey R. Tronvold (Eells & Tronvold, Cedar Rapids, Iowa). Based on the average annual income in Muscatine County, the jury “gave her 30 years of work.”

Rossiter also alleged that Evans infected her with bacterial vaginitis. But that disease, unlike genital warts, is permanently curable.

Actual knowledge of infection is usually not a requirement for the tort of negligent infliction of an STD. Those who, "under the totality of the circumstances, have reason to know they are infected" may be liable under the standard of "constructive" knowledge.

But there does not appear to be any precedent for finding constructive knowledge of an HPV infection. In McPherson v. McPherson, 712 A.2d 1043 (1998), the Maine Supreme Judicial Court cleared a man of liability for infecting his wife with the virus, in part because –- like Evans -– he had no medical diagnosis of any STD.

According to Rossiter's petition, she met Evans in December 2004 when she went to his office for dental work. They began dating and sometime before the New Year, he “volunteered that he was free from any type of sexually transmitted disease.”

On New Year's Day 2005, the suit said, they had a sexual encounter with genital contact but “did not have intercourse.” Then a few days later,

Evans raised the topic of sexually transmitted diseases again, and specifically inquired as to whether Karly had ever been specifically tested for Human Papilloma Virus.

As a result of that inquiry, Rossiter went to her gynecologist and got tested. In April 2005, she learned that she could have the virus and about a year after the New Year's Day encounter with Evans she developed genital warts.

Tronvold questions why Evans would have asked Rossiter about being tested for HPV “if he didn't have something ... It's a bizarre question to ask somebody.” By not warning her to take precautions, he says, “he failed to do what a reasonable person would have done under the circumstances.”

The verdict form shows that $500,000 of Rossiter's compensatory damages was for future mental pain and suffering. The punitives were for Evans's "willful and wanton disregard" of her safety.

The jury rejected a battery claim which required the plaintiff to prove Evans deliberately infected her.

By Matthew Heller
8/7/08