Court Opinion

ID: 9528955
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:45:42.350843+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:30.151242
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE KUEHN, concurring in part and dissenting in part: The legislature created the private right of action employed in this case for a serious reason. It wanted to promote voluntary testing for a deadly communicable disease. The legislature recognized that voluntary testing could lead to early discovery of infection and prevent that infection from being passed on to others by sexual activity known to transmit the virus. This statute is primarily about protecting people and saving lives. The legislature also recognized the social stigma that attaches to known carriers of the virus. Despite the limited means of contaminating others and the ability to live a relatively lengthy and normal existence before the virus progresses into AIDS, people known to carry human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are pariahs, treated only slightly better than how people used to treat a leper who escaped from the colony. Hence, legislators provided an essential statutory promise to promote voluntary testing. Anyone who procures a test is assured that its results will remain a secret between the patient and his or her medical providers. The paramount public policy that underlies the remedial cause of action successfully pursued in this case directs us to the true injury targeted for remediation. By allowing for recovery of actual damages in lieu of the statutorily fixed amount, our legislature sought to redress something more important than a medical bill or a lost wage, damages unlikely to flow from the disclosure of a medical test result. Actual damages were included to compensate for the mental anguish caused by particularly egregious breaches of the legislature’s promise of confidentiality and to deter future breaches beyond the salutary effect that a mere $5,000 penalty could provide. This conclusion is obvious, given the manner in which the legislature provided for other remedies under the Act. The punitive element of the cause of action is illuminated in the heightened fixed damages for intentional, as opposed to negligent, violations of the Act’s assurance. The actual damages contemplated under this cause of action are akin to the highly subjective damages that people are allowed to recover for the intentional infliction of emotional distress. As the Illinois Supreme Court has recognized in refusing to allow punitive damages for that tort, its compensatory element is essentially punitive in nature. Knierim v. Izzo, 22 Ill. 2d 73, 88, 174 N.E.2d 157, 165 (1961). This is why punitive damages were not included in a statutory cause of action intended to provide a deterrent effect. By understanding the legislature’s purpose, we can better focus on two key components of the actual damages in this case. The first is the emotional distress generated by public disclosure that Jane Doe harbored the capacity to infect people with a frightfully deadly, but misunderstood, disease. The second component measures the violator’s conduct for the degree of its reprehensibility. Because I did not observe Jane Doe’s testimony, I feel uncomfortable trying to measure the depth of emotional distress that she suffered as a result of Dr. Chand’s outrageous conduct. The trial judge who observed her complaints was in a much better position to judge that. However, I am perfectly comfortable in measuring the outrageous nature of Dr. Chand’s conduct for purposes of the punitive element of the actual damages that Judge O’Malley awarded. I cannot imagine a physician, schooled in the general confidentiality of medical treatment, engaging in such egregious conduct. We do not need to know how many times Dr. Chand violated the Act. Once is enough, but here there were numerous violations. The ones we know about shock the senses. They speak plainly to a physician run amok, not only leaking highly guarded medical information, but actively engaged in an effort to ostracize her patient from other people. Moreover, she was doing so with false and defamatory information. Jane Doe did not have AIDS. She merely tested positive for the HIV virus, a condition that could lead to the deadly syndrome. Submission of medical bills, wage losses, and the like should be of little import to our review of the damages awarded to Jane Doe. This case is all about betrayal — the betrayal of a patient and the betrayal of professional duty and trust. We need to pause and consider how a person could ever inflict a deeper wound than the one inflicted in this case. In effect, Dr. Chand, in violation of the Act, told family, friends, and fellow patients that Jane Doe was dying from a deadly disease. She also warned that being in her presence was a dangerous act. She suggested that Jane Doe should be completely avoided, as though AIDS could be contracted by airborne vapors. Dr. Chand actually pursued a course to effect isolation, labeling Jane Doe a social outcast. She had just as well condemned her patient to a leper colony. Given the circumstances of this case, I am not prepared to find that the award of actual damages was against the manifest weight of the evidence. I concur in all other aspects of the majority opinion. While I agree that the legislature did not contemplate an award of punitive damages, I reiterate that it clearly intended the actual damages to contain a punitive element.