AIDS phobia

AIDS phobia
Libasci v Rockville Centre Housing Auth., NYS Supreme Ct., Nassau County, [Not selected for inclusion in the Official Reports]

Libasci and a fellow Rockville Centre sanitation worker, Joseph DeJesus, were removing trash from the Rockville Housing Authority when an insulin needle protruding from a trash bag stuck Libasci.

Libasci was treated at the South Nassau Communities Hospital Emergency Room and given a tetanus shot. Subsequent blood tests were negative for infectious diseases.

On February 18, 1997, Libasci sued for negligence based what State Supreme Court Justice McCaffrey described as “AIDS phobia.”

Justice McCaffrey said that “[I]n order to maintain a cause of action for damages due to the fear of contracting AIDS a rational belief of infection, standing alone, is inadequate. A plaintiff who has not tested seropositive must offer proof of ‘actual exposure’, that is of both a scientifically accepted method of transmission of the virus (in this case a needle puncture) and that the source of the allegedly transmitted blood or fluid was in fact HIV-positive...,” citing Brown v. New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, 225 AD2d 36.

The court said that summary judgment in favor of the authority was justified because Libasci acknowledged that he “does not know the original owner of the needle or of his or her medical condition” and there was no admissible evidence to demonstrate that the needle was infected.
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NYPPL