Subject: Law Firms Use Various Tactics To Prevent Exodus by Partners 
Date: Published: 1/20/92 (57 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Law -- Legal Beat:
    Law Firms Use Various Tactics
    To Prevent Exodus by Partners
    ----
    By Arthur S. Hayes
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

[112 lines irrelevant to AIDS removed.  -- sysop]

    AIDS IS THE MOST LITIGATED disease ever, according to
 Harvard study.
    In a report for the AIDS Litigation Project, the Harvard
 School of Public Health said that nearly 1,000 cases related
 to acquired immune-deficiency syndrome are either pending or
 have been decided nationwide.  The AIDS Litigation Project is
 part of the U. S. Public Health Service.
    The study found that since 1989 the largest number of
 cases, which also include complaints filed with state and
 local human-rights commissions, involved discrimination
 against people with AIDS.  Two other major areas of litigation
 involved blood transfusions and criminal prosecutions of
 people accused of threatening to transmit the disease to
 others.
    Because courts have generally found that people with AIDS
 are protected from job and housing discrimination, Larry
 Gostin, professor of health law and author of the report,
 said he expects future suits to deal more with access to
 health care and insurance coverage.  "I think insurance will
 be very heavily litigated," he said in an interview,
 particularly as companies try to cut benefits for workers
 infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.  
    Prof.  Gostin said another increasing area of litigation
 involves civil suits brought by people claiming they were
 exposed to the virus during sex.  "Tort litigation among
 sexual partners is also expanding with the HIV epidemic," the
 report said.  "Courts have continued to allow private tort
 actions based on the premise that a partner negligently or
 intentionally transmitted a venereal disease."
    Similar suits, arguing that people infected with HIV have
 a "duty to warn," also are being brought by police and
 emergency-care workers against prisoners and patients, Prof.
 Gostin said.
    He also said the study found that court decisions often
 appear to be based more on fears and stereotypes about AIDS
 than on medical facts.  For instance, he said that in many
 cases where a person with AIDS allegedly exposed another
 person to the disease, harsh criminal sentences have been
 handed down even though there was no real risk of
 transmission.

[This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the
 personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the
 hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering
 from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]