Faya v. Almaraz

MURPHY, Chief Judge.

These companion cases present the important question whether a surgeon infected with the AIDS virus has a legal duty to inform patients of that condition before operating upon them and, failing that, whether a patient’s fear of having contracted the AIDS .virus from the infected surgeon constitutes a legally compensable injury where the patient has not shown HIV-positive status.

I

Central to an understanding of these cases are the nature of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and its relationship to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV or “the AIDS virus”). First…