A Cook County jury has ordered a North Shore mom to pay $2 million because she falsely assured her son's fiancee that her son did not have AIDS.
This appears to be the first time a jury has held parents responsible for not disclosing their child's AIDS to the child's sex partner.
Some backers of Illinois' AIDS confidentiality law hope the verdict will be overturned on appeal because they say the mother would have been breaking state law to disclose her son had AIDS.
"This is an outrageous and interesting case," said Ann Hilton Fisher, executive director of the AIDS Legal Counsel of Chicago. "It's legally wrong. It never should have gone to the jury. It would have been a violation of Illinois law for these parents to tell this woman of their son's HIV status."
Legal experts don't expect this case to create a new duty for parents because of the unique circumstances.
Details of those "unique circumstances" are here from the Chicago Sun-Times. (via OnPoint)