I don’t know much about sexually transmitted diseases. My 10th grade health teacher – Coach Oates – spent more time threatening “ass whoopin’s”, cracking jokes, and talking football than he did teaching us about the birds, the bees, and STDs. The main source of information about STD threats was the media; growing up in the Nineties, the only STD worth mentioning seemed to be HIV – “the disease that causes AIDS”. A recent legal case in which a man was ordered to pay a woman $1.5 million highlights several inefficiencies. First, the legal system is shown to be stacked against men, once again. Second, the overblown AIDS crisis hurt women in one important way which – if cases like the one I’m going to discuss continue – has brought men down with it.
Â
It wasn’t until college that I really heard any talk about other more common, albeit less serious sexually transmitted infections like HPV, herpes, chlamydia, etc. HPV causes cervical cancer; chlamydia can cause tubal pregnancies and serious health problems in women, yet sexually irresponsible children only hear about the Big One: HIV.  Â
For example, we all know the various mechanisms by which HIV is spread – anal sex, vaginal sex, IV needle sharing, blood transfusion – but not many know that HPV can be spread through skin to skin contact: no penetration necessary. For a virus that affects some 50% of sexually active adults and has serious consequences if left untreated and unmonitored, the time, energy, and resources spent on HIV awareness is and was inefficiently allocated. HPV awareness in the media and schools would have had more bang for the buck than the hullabaloo surrounding HIV. The fact is that, as a white heterosexual non drug-using male, I have very little risk of contracting HIV. I have a relatively high risk of contracting and transmitting HPV, chlamydia, and herpes though.  Â
This is my long-winded way of saying that this lawsuit is bullshit. A dentist, Alan Evans, has been ordered to pay $1.5 million to Karly Rossiter for allegedly knowingly transmitting HPV to her; the decision handed down in an Iowa court was recently upheld. The pair had sex on January 1, 2005 after beginning dating sometime in December 2004. One “strong” piece of evidence against Evans was the fact that Evans asked Rossiter if she had been tested for HPV after they had sex.Â
In the particular case of Rossiter versus Evans, Rossiter claimed that she was HPV free before having sex with Evans. Even though she is also currently HPV-free – and $1.5 million richer – she sought and received damages for stress and strain due to a possibility that the virus would flare back up in the future. Assuming Rossiter, who was 23 at the time, had previously had sex with other people (she didn’t hold out on sex with Evans for long: they started dating in December 2004 and had sex on New Years, and the fact that Rossiter states that her previos test came back negative for HPV rather than saying that she was a virgin ***Update: she wasn’t a virgin), it’s entirely possible that Rossiter’s HPV had “gone away” before her previous exam and reappeared during the interim. There seems to be too many possibilities to prove that Evans knowingly infected Rossiter.
But in civil suits, “preponderance of doubt” is the only legal hurdle that needs to be cleared. This leaves men more susceptible to liability than women despite the same level of negligibility and carelessness. Rossiter’s lawyer, Jeff Tronvold, even pointed out during the trial that the date, means, and identity of infecting partner are difficult to definitively pin down when people are sexually active.
An MSNBC article quoted Tronvold as saying:
“If 75 percent of people are exposed to HPV, then everybody should know they had it at one point…[If you deny it to a partner,] “you have already met, in my opinion, the civil burden [of proof] because you just lied. You should say, ‘I have no signs, but I cannot tell you I never had it.’ This could change the way we all date.â€
Scary stuff for any man. Regardless of the particular circumstances surrounding this case, such a decision and such legal wrangling leaves open the door for future litigation against men for knowledge that is often beyond their ability to have. The fact that most men carry the disease at some point but never know when they carry the disease or if their immune system has defeated it means they must make the assumption that there’s a reasonable possibility that they currently have the virus. To definitively deny having HPV is deceptive since a man can never know for sure that he doesn’t have the virus. But if Tronvold argues that men are culpable because they have cause to believe they are somewhat likely to have had the disease, doesn’t this imply that a woman should have reasonable cause to assume that the man she’s sleeping with has or has had HPV? Welcome to CYA 101.  Â
This court decision caught my eye, took me aback, and made me throw up in my mouth a little. First off, men are usually only ever aware of having HPV after being told by a woman that she has the virus. HPV screens are only available during women’s cervical exams. The Center for Disease Control even seems to poo-poo HPV infection in men:
“Currently, there is no test designed or approved to find HPV in men. The only approved HPV test on the market is for women, for use as part of cervical cancer screening. There is no general test for men or women to check one’s overall “HPV status.†But HPV usually goes away on its own, without causing health problems. So an HPV infection that is found today will most likely not be there a year or two from now.”
Most men never develop health problems from HPV therefore there is no reason for them to screen for it. Well, unless we all get sued to death; that’s a health concern.Â
If Evans was liable, this means that many, many men have contracted the virus from a woman who knew she had the disease but didn’t tell him. Because men don’t directly suffer from HPV or show signs of infection (1% of cases lead to genital warts and most show no outward signs of infection) and none die as a result of the virus, men don’t have much of a litiginal claim against a woman who lies about her infection. But if he is informed of his infection, neverminding the fact that he could be completely misled into thinking that he carries the virus, he is liable to a woman he infects if she isn’t informed about it. The only recompense for men would be if a judge and jury bought the same distorted logic used by Tronvold to side with a man – this is doubtful to happen.
 So there is a legal precedent implicating men for having sex with women without knowing for sure that they don’t have HPV. There are many other cases as well such as the recent filing of a $25 million lawsuit of a woman suing her husband for HPV contraction. The legal claim regarding HPV incurred such a high settlement because of the potential damage caused by this particular virus. But up until recently, and likely during the mid 2000s, people didn’t know much about HPV or the damage it could potentially cause. If a man like Evans were told that he had dipsodrymadica (I made that up) is he responsible for whatever damage that disease causes to a person he gives it to if a.) he knows nothing about it b.) the disease has little media exposure and c.) it is relatively less researched than other diseases? At what point must a person be fully aware of the consequences of their disease, at what point must they fully know the risks of it, and at what point are the responsible for sifting through mountains of information that may or may not be true? Purposeful HIV infection is pretty cut-and-dry: people don’t “get rid of” HIV, and the effects of it have been fully pounded into our skulls. There is another possibility about the extent to which a man knows he has HPV, which is relevant in Evans’ case. Genital warts indicate HPV, but lack of knowledge about HPV means that there is/was little chance that Evans knew a.) that he had a virus b.) the severity of the virus and c.) the nature of the virus and the risk of passing it on.   An interesting fact about this particular case is that Rossiter testified that Evans had bumps on his penis yet she still had sex with him. If Evans had bumps and didn’t know what those bumps indicated because of ignorance is he to be held liable even though Rossiter isn’t held liable for the same ignorant display? It is also worth noting that Rossiter continued having sex with Evans for a year-and-a-half after learning she had HPV.  Evans probably did, however, know that he should wear a condom during sex so as to prevent the transmission of HIV. Unfortunately in the case of HPV, condom use doesn’t prevent its spread. I didn’t know that until 2 years ago.
The point is, most men today don’t know that they can transmit HPV. Men around my age who grew up in the Nineties and early Naughts knew absolutely nothing about the disease then. Men older than us knew that much less. Hardly anyone knows that 50% of adults contract the virus at some point in their lives nor do they know the nature of the virus and what its symptoms are. They also don’t know that about 4,000 women die a year in the United States as a result of cervical cancer caused by the virus. As a comparison, 18,000 deaths occured in the United States due to AIDS in 2003. Of those 18,000, a high percentage were attributed to homosexual intercourse and IV drug use. To compare apples to apples, 4,000 women died from HPV due to relatively innocuous sexual behavior – which, I’d argue is in the ballpark of the number of women who died from AIDS contracted via similar behavior. The risks are similar, but the media attention, medical funding, and general knowledge of each disease incongruently favors HIV/AIDS relative to HPV and other diseases. This has harmed women and will also harm men if their knowledge of the diseases they potentially carry isn’t provided to them.    Â
This is where my ire towards our educational upbringing and overblown media coverage of HIV comes in. A case like this leaves too much room for people – especially men – to be found liable for damages from a disease they know next to nothing about. They know next to nothing about it because nobody has told them about it because the “teachers” were too busy focusing on other diseases that – while dangerous and certainly a threat – weren’t the only disease on the block worth knowing about.Â
So lesson #1 learned from CYA 101: men now face the possibility of lawsuit for having sex with any woman without signing a legal waiver. Great – Game, foreplay, and romance are now futile.
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{ 41 comments… read them below or add one }
What if the woman has had multiple sex partners? How do you pinpoint one man?
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You’re kidding me.
A) Now that the legal precedent has been set, it should be open-shut for why all men must now have rights — rights! — to the HPV vaccine.
B) You’re kidding me. How could this have happened? How did this case not get thrown out? He didn’t even know for sure? Oh my God.
Incontrovertible proof sex has been criminalised.
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this is partly because AIDS made for a sensational news story and partly because it had an outsized effect on the “creative” classes, so the celebraties all got involved. plus, in the age of political correctness is was wall but verboten to imply that people’s behavior and lifestyle choices could have an effect on their health. it didn’t help that you had crazies like jerry falwell saying AIDS was a curse from god. as usual, the sensible middle ground got lost on the yelling going on between those on either extreme.
also, this is a big issue in international development. there’s tremendous amounts of money thorwn at AIDS, while children in Africa die of diarhea
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Obviously not everyone’s immune system is equal, but….
1/ I have had more pussy than I can count, I simply have no idea.
2/ I have never in my life used a condom.
3/ I’m not circumcised.
4/ cunt to ass, ass to cunt, etc etc, been there, done that.
5/ Never had a specific STD test myself, but, get them by proxy regularly, and am a blood donor, etc etc.
6/ Never had anything, not even an itch / rash / crabs / nothing.
Two rules my grandad told me.
One, wash your old man just before
Two, wash your old man just after
Take a piss.
(wash = soap and water, nothing more)
YMMV if you are a fag “receiver” or female. If you’re just making “deposits” it’s a different world.
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There is a large and growing body of evidence that AIDS does not link to HIV and most of the problems associated with HIV come from other “treatable” factors of health.
In Africa, India, etc. if we really wanted to help we would be spending billions to ensure clean water and sanitation. But then, how would drug company ceo’s survive without $150 million dollar bonuses?
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”””””””’Purposeful HIV infection is pretty cut-and-dry: people don’t “get rid of†HIV, and the effects of it have been fully pounded into our skulls. ””””””””’
Magic Johnson is still alive. He was paid to say he had aids so that people would be scared to have sex. Aid statistics cannot be real or everyone would already be dead.
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In a civil case, how can one party prove that the other party infected them? Couldn’t either party accuse the other of being the one that spread the infection?
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Just when you think nothing can shock you anymore, you read something like this. This is unjust and criminal.
Bhetti-A) Now that the legal precedent has been set, it should be open-shut for why all men must now have rights — rights! — to the HPV vaccine.
Do you have any thoughts on when the HPV vaccine may be offered to men with the same fanfare its being offer to for women? As of last October the FDA has approved Gardasil for men and boys but has not been added to the vaccine schedule for boys as it has for girls. There is a great deal of controversy surrounding Gardasil, coming from anti-vaccination advocates, social conservatives, and others. The family care practice I used to be seen at while a teenager stopped offering this vaccination to their female patients due to safety concerns with Gardasil. Would I be wrong to wonder if such concerns and controversy may impact access to this vaccine for men?
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I don’t see anything to indicate in the case that Ms Rossiter wasn’t a virgin. It seems our dentist guy was misrepresenting himself and laying two other ladies on the side at the same time.
Meanwhile he had a relationship with Ms Rossiter that lasted a year and a half. I’d say the odds are very good he did infect her.
So unlike my initial reading of this piece this isn’t some case that came up over a one-night stand. It seems their relationship, built on fraud, went on for quite awhile.
Now I fully agree about the policy implications of making a basically *for males* untestable disease civally liable. But in my opinions there are two things that kind of limit the damage this case can do:
A. Defendent may have only been a Dentist, but he was still in better position to have knowlege and precautions against this disease than say, a roofer. Farthermore he specifically asked the plaintiff if she had tested for it, thus indicating *despite diseases relative anonymity within the general population STD knowledgebase* foreknowledge of the disease.
B. They had a relationship, not a one-night stand. Presumably defendent and his multiple partners could have infected Ms Rossiter at any time over that frame.
For these reasons, I hardly feel this is a big threat to your average male, nor do I weep at the verdict.
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Clarence–
For these reasons, I hardly feel this is a big threat to your average male, nor do I weep at the verdict.
You tool. You should be outraged at the verdict. I sure am.
Anything that’s as common in the population as HPV is, with 50% of the population getting it (and I’ve seen estimates at medical sites including I believe the CDC that an estimated 80% of women will getting it at some point in their lives), should be treated as simply a hazard of having sex with anyone.
Especially since it causes serious problems in such a TINY percentage of those that get it, and not because they have to be on $10k plus a year cocktails of drugs to prevent it’s doing so (as w/HIV) either. Most people’s immune systems either clear it entirely or below detectable levels or below levels that will cause problems. As well only some strains are known to cause problems.
Almost all of the 4k that die of cervical cancer (not all of which is due to HPV) wouldn’t have if they’d had regular medical exams (pap smears). The early stages of cervical cancer seem to be relatively easy to cure, and to detect.
This is simply an horrendous and massively unjust verdict. It should be appealed.
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Clarence:
You didn’t see it because you didn’t look. I linked to the actual court decision which explicitly states “Neither was a virgin” (p. 2).
This is because you are an idiot and secretly wish to be a woman. $1.5 million is a lot of money for a virus that is actually relatively benign. You also don’t account for the fact that there absolutely has to be more women who know they have the virus than there are men who know they have the virus. This is because only women are given test results and first-hand confirmation from doctors about having the virus.
So lots and lots of women have lied to men about having the disease, but the fact that men don’t die from it means that they get set up for liability for carrying and passing it on.
While the specifics of the Evans v. Rossiter case are interesting, the rationale of the court and the argument of Rossiter’s lawyer that I clearly quoted is that *any man is now liable for damages if he has sex with a woman*. Torvold explicity says that since a man knows he has a decent chance of having the virus at any given time, if he says he’s clean, he’s technically being negligent.
I mean, where’s the line drawn? I don’t think I have H1N1, but I’ve been told there’s like a 50% chance that I’ll get it sometime. Am I liable for negligence if I cough around someone but tell them I’m clean?
The precedent has been set, and while many courts would throw out cases like this after argument from a decent lawyer, there will be some men hurt by these types of decisions. And these decisions, the whole premise of these cases, is obscenely anti-male. There’s no arguing out of that.
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$1.5 million?
Well, I hope he ends up getting his money’s worth.
You know exactly what I mean.
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Chuck
Flip the script. By the same logic all women should know that there’s a decent chance that any particular man has the virus at any given time, and hence doesn’t have to be warned (since she already knows or should know) unless perhaps he’s certain he has it, and still has it at infectious levels.
Why on earth should the man have the burden of warning her of something she should warn herself of.
I can’t believe this precedent will be followed it’s so bad. I most definitely should be appealed. The legal logic is terrible.
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Doug1:
“Flip the script. By the same logic…”
Yeah, I addressed that somewhere in the long body of my post (I know it’s long, I understand the skimming). Add in the fact that Rossiter testified that she saw bumps on Evans’ penis – presumably while she was fellating him before they had sex.
To be honest, if the woman’s cervix is the object at danger here I’d assume that the woman has a greater duty to know about her body and account for risks. If she didn’t know that the bumps were HPV why should she assume that Evans knew that the bumps were HPV?
As for the appeal, the case was originially decided in 2008; it was recently appealed and upheld in Iowa.
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Chuck:
I specifically said I do not like the policy implications of this case.
I said I could see that this situation was outside the norm and I could see several things that might lead a jury to acquit a man if such a case was brought up.
Nonetheless in this particular case, I feel justice was done.
That being said, if he could appeal and win his appeal it would benefit men greatly at the expense of one wronged woman. Perhaps I should wish for that, even though I feel this man is a rather reprhensible jerk who almost certainly is guilty of infecting the plaintiff.
Yes, the laws are getting out of hand. It’s going to come back to bite those pushing this stuff hard eventually. But unless they get a case LIKE this one except that the man had no knowledge of the disease and they convict him, I fail to see how this can hurt most men. Technically that stupid lawyer is already a criminal, already guilty of *something * for which a federal prosecutor could get him for , yet surprisingly I don’t think he expects to be hauled off in handcuffs anytime soon even though he knows how some of the laws can be abused by the powers that be. I think that going after men who either had no knowledge of this disease or where the disease did no harm would be such a broad overabuse of this that few, if any , men would be convicted civally.
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Doug1:
Despite the fact you are an ass, I agree with you on what SHOULD be. However, I disagree as to how dangerous this case is -assuming our man doesn’t appeal it to the highest court and get this overturned somehow. Remember that if a woman or man brings these actions to court, the cases are public, not sealed. It’s likely embarrasment will keep many of these cases from getting filed in the first place, and unlike false rape accusations there’s no “STD shield” laws for a civil case, nor any reason for our prurient press to hide the identity.
You know what really worries me? It’s not that there might be tons of cases like this, I surely doubt there will be. It will be that the standard of liabilility in this case might start to influence other civil cases involving sex.
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My cynical self wonders if Merck Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline lent a hand for the plaintive, given that vaccine sales have been disappointing. Scare-mongering might assist with sales.
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“Nonetheless in this particular case, I feel justice was done.”
If justice were done in this case then there are millions of other “justices” to be doled out with men as plaintiffs. But that won’t ever happen.
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Clarence:
Implication here is clear.
The virus is common. EVERY man who has ever had sex — especially but not necessarily! — without protection is almost certainly guilty of infecting a woman with HPV.
A case like this allowed to stand says this clearly. Furthermore, no proof need be provided that the HPV virus in fact caused real harm as opposed to ‘psychological’ bullcrap harm.
Even if we use criminal law standards where it is proven beyond doubt he ‘deliberately’ infected her with malicious intent [which is not the case], it would still be a far cry from the HIV situation — which is that HIV = automatic death/suffering — due to the low risks associated with HPV in the first place. Why? All women who have cervical cancer are infected with HPV but most women who have HPV will not develop cervical cancer.
There is a clear message here. No man is allowed to have sex. No man is safe if he tries. Maybe it’s time to put out the welcome mats…
Welcome to the New Radical Islamic State: America!
Maybe globalman isn’t damn insane when he mentions the Illuminati.
By the way: Does she smoke? Where’s the 1.5 million from the tobbaco company who also increased her risk of pathological psychologically damaging HPV-related changes? KNOWINGLY, people. They knowingly did it. There is more evidence they knowingly did it then Alan Evans.
This case is ridiculous. Any woman in America can prosecute a man based on zero evidence to the tune of 1.5million. Marriage not required. RIDICULOUS! Where are the consequences to her? It’s beyond ridiculous. Beyond.
Hestia: I will get back to you when I calm down.
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clarence, ‘justice’ ? you did notice ‘million’ did you not ? it was not just 1.5$.
you cannot think this to be a ‘just’ sized award. cannot possibly.
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Clarence,
When you become a woman, I hope you mold yourself in the image of Bhetti.
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I agree that there’s a desperate need for the HPV vaccine to be available to men. My sons would be among the first in line. Unfortunately there are many parents who fear the vaccine or think it will cause their children to be promiscuous. Additionally, I believe the vaccine’s cut off age is 26, which is far too young.
I disagree that this case is somehow threatening for men. Overall, this is nothing new and has been actionable forever. By extension of the logic of the author, because women can go to the doctor and get tested for HPV, it should actually be easier for a man to sue a woman for the same thing and win because he’ll have access to the best evidence available – a positive HPV test of a woman’s. Women don’t have that luxury unless the man is showing symptoms – as was the case here.
The legal issues at hand are far more complex than the author has made them out to be.
“There seems to be too many possibilities to prove that Evans knowingly infected Rossiter.”
The question in a negligence case is not if someone “knowingly” did something. “Knowingly infected” would be intentional transmission, which is entirely different than what this was – negligent transmission. The judge made it clear that the question for the jury was if Evans knew or should have known he carried any of the STDs mentioned in the opinion.
Negligence cases are very fact-specific – the facts of each individual case make for differences in the outcome. The facts here are not common at all, and therefore, this case could not be easily duplicated. How many plaintiffs (male or female) have that laundry list of facts? Healthcare professional (A) and layperson (B), STD conversation in which both say they’re STD-free, in which A says that they “had not had sex in the six months since he had been tested” which is a lie, their first sexual encounter happens and immediately after A tells B to go get tested out of nowhere, two other partners early in the relationship for A, one of which had “a distinct odor related to bacterial vaginitis,” and then later A admits to B that one of the people that A cheated on B with “had symptoms like B’s”, warts on A’s genitalia, A’s refusal to get tested… the list goes on and on. I may be missing some. Some of those facts are from other articles I found on the case – the opinion doesn’t even mention all of them.
He had warts and that is the surest way for a man to know he has HPV. If either gender has warts, that isn’t information that can be withheld from a partner. The same is true for cancerous lesions caused by HPV and the like – the same with other STDs with serious implications.
Someone said, “If she didn’t know that the bumps were HPV why should she assume that Evans knew that the bumps were HPV?” The opinion made that clear. Evans was a health professional and her dentist. A good friend of mine is also a dentist and his postgraduate education was identical to that of a doctor’s for the first few years. That training includes information about STDs.
Also it’s important to note that the jury awarded Rossiter $700,000 in compensatory damages. The other $800,000 was punitive damages for “willful and wanton disregard for the rights or safety of another,” according to the opinion. Those amounts are for two different things. It is not a flat-out $1.5M verdict when broken down.
Finally, I read of no indication that she is HPV-free.
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LOL!!
If all you have is insults chuck, then I’m afraid the only woman here is you.
By the way, another thing you are ignoring is that this is an appeals court in ONE state about a civil suit brought on THAT state.
Such suits will probably be disallowed in Texas, for example.
Such hysteria over something that is , except for men in that particular state, not even a bump in the road.
We’ll see what happens from now on.
By the way, Bhetti at least made an argument without insults.
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AD:
Is the reward excessive?
Yes, I believe so. A flat 100 thousand would easily have sent any msg needed and covered the woman’s doctors expenses to boot. But people aren’t having hissy fits over the size of the award. It’s that the case was ruled actionable at all.
Another thing these people don’t seem to understand is that a lawyer’s comment doesn’t even amount to dicta. Thus the lawyer saying any male is liable if they claim for sure they don’t have the disease is not something the court opinion said.
Shrugs.
I view the “emotional abuse” law in France as far more deadly and affecting far more people, though, obviously- not yet anyway- not affecting anyone in the US.
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Asset protection. Asset protection. Asset protection.
It’s never too early to learn about how to legally separate yourself from “your” money and stuff, unless you’re a young man planning to go nowhere in life. But it’s probably too late for the dentist.
And since when has justice had anything whatsoever to do with the legal system? It’s a business, just like everything else in the US.
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Scott:
The question isn’t whether a man can prove that a woman lied to him about her having HPV. The question is if this is an actionable offense when a woman does it. Would a man have a legitimate negligence claim against a woman? Also, would a man even think to sue over this situation since HPV is clearly designated as a “woman’s disease”. There are too many steps between a man and his perceived “psychological harm”, and he doesn’t have a chance of developing dysplasia or cancer. His life isn’t in jeopardy. His fear is less rational than that of a woman in the same situation. Judges and juries are much less likely to sympathize with him.
The woman saw the same evidence that Evans did yet she still had sex with him. Almost no man is educated about the symptoms of STDs that don’t involve puss leaking from orifices or severe itching. We know nothing of the facts, the risks, or the prevention methods outside of condom use – which is ineffective in preventing HPV. How can a man have negligence if most men don’t know anything about the thing they’re being negligent about? There was no indicator that Evans received STD training during his dentistry training. That is speculative since it isn’t shown in the court document.
The points are: she was not a virgin, she could have contracted HPV from a previous partner. The first write-up I linked to provided information that she is currently HPV free.
If Evans was negligent, but so was the woman. She saw something on his penis but went ahead with having sex with him. From my reading of the case, Evans described Bacterial vaginitis to the woman before they had sex. *The woman was negligent of her own vagina*. She continued having sex with him for a year and a half afterward.
Few knew anything about HPV in 2004/2005. I remember when it first became a hot topic. All of a sudden discussion of it profligated all over the place within a matter of months. I knew nothing about the various strains of HPV, and until I read up for this article I didn’t know that the body can clear it; I thought that men were forever carriers of it. Mix in the fact that on the one hand HPV was considered a benign condition for men (as shown by the CDC quote) but with severe consequences for women, there doesn’t seem to be a clear picture of the nature of HPV.
So, yes, this case is purely about “negligent transmission”, but that implies, as Torvold said, that every man is negligent if and when he transmits a virus to a woman.
The woman had sex with a man that, in retrospect, she thought had the disease at the time of their first encounter. She went ahead with it which is reasonable enough to assume that she tacitly agreed to have sex with knowledge of his condition.
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Clarence:
That’s not all I have. I wrote a frickin’ 1900 word piece; that counts for something. And I’ve engaged in discussion over the article. So insults are just part of my larger repertoire. The fact is, almost every time I’ve seen you argue on something across the blogosphere, you take the anti-male side. You verge on troll territory.
On to your other point – I’m not worried that cases like this will pop up all over the place. But it’s just another example of men having to take responsiblity, and pay through the nose, for things that women should reasonably be just as reponsible for (if not more so) as men.
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INPUT ERROR
UNKNOWN VALUE: “FEMALE NEGLIGENCE”
RECONSIDER SCENARIO Y/N
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Some simple facts: Elementary hygiene saves. Promiscuity and other dumbfuck adolescent behavior kills-and LITIGATION is the Devil’s jock-itch.
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Word.
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Chuckles:
Perhaps I don’t write on here very often. But I do write on here. I think you just have your panties in a snit because you don’t do all your homework when you write some of your posts and I , tending to be someone who values accurate information sometimes notices and gently or not so gently points that out. In this case, my first post contained not a single insult to anyone but all I got in return was a bunch of snark and not the funny clever kind that our poster Snark tends to display.
Yes, though I read the opinion I missed that small teensy sentence saying that neither was a virgin. But I’ve read your links. And my larger point stands:
You make a good post about a civil damages case in one state. You point out facts about a very common disease that are very useful and that I’ve never seen before in one place. Then after doing all that useful stuff and giving us your opinion that it will lead to more such cases in the future – a legitimate opinion as it remains to be seen – you unfortunately start to apply this ruling way too broadly as if a civil ruling in one state automatically applies to all courts in every state. I state my belief that this will hardly lead to a rush to the court house and even if it does most men will seem far more sympathetic than this character. I point out that its is a ruling from a lower level appeals court in one state based on facts that the jury found in one trial in that state. We don’t even have the original civil trial transcript here so alot of what we are all doing is guessing as to what made the jury see things the way they did. They obviously found at least one of the plaintiffs claims credible but I suppose we are free to assume that we know better than the jury.
While I consider it most likely he did indeed give her the virus and I find his behaviour reprehensible , I admit he might not have. But at least partly what convicted his ass here is his behaviour not so much whether he gave her the disease or not.
In any case, we shall see if this post of yours is prophetic or merely turns out to be sounding the alarm bell for a fluke of a civil case.
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This decision is fucking ridiculous. How can you hold a man accountable for a disease that can’t be reliably tested in a man and is not only asymptomatic in 99% of men but disappears over time with a strong immune system? This poor bastard either had the worst fucking lawyer in the world or this country is becoming uninhabitable. This is a terrible precedent.
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Clarence:
OK. I did overreact in insulting you. It was my natural reaction since you weren’t as overwhelmingly appalled by this cases ridiculous decision as I thought you should have been.
So I’m sorry for that part.
As for the merits of the case; I don’t feel that you exposed any holes in my argument. Perhaps the man was guilty of bravado or assholery, but if I’m holding the ideal of justice to a high regard I have to understand that those behaviors *shouldn’t* enter into a judge/jury’s decision. He was misleading about his sex life and he had bumps on his penis. He lied and either knew he had been exposed to HPV and knew the risks of it or he lied and knew he had been exposed to HPV but didn’t know the risks of it and the precautions he should take or he didn’t lie and didn’t know he had been exposed to HPV.
The court obviously found evidence of neglect. I’m only stating that if he is neglectful, she is neglectful. I’m further stating that in every instance the man is beholding to the woman for his own HPV diagnoses and that these cases, if and when they should ever arise, *will always* be detrimental to the man even though men and women engage in irresponsible behavior together.
While I don’t think that HPV negligence cases will be a huge thing, google “STD negligence lawyer” and you’ll find many returns for attorneys specializing in these cases. Torvold himself has been contacted by other women to handle these types of claims, there is a $25 million lawsuit in New York of a woman suing her husband, and HPV lends itself to the most nuance and least about of concrete evidence which is an attorney’s dream. . By the very nature of the disease, women will always be the plaintiffs in these cases.
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Chuck:
When you and Bhetti, esp. you point out that women will almost always be the plaintiffs in these cases you make a good point, and one that is indeed part of why this case disturbs me. I’m not necessarily saying the man was treated fair in this case, as I said, we don’t have the original transcript and I myself thought the award wasy about oh, 15 times too large. And yes such cases IF they are taken up more often in the future will unjustly impact men as compared to women. Indeed, this is part of a larger trend in our law and society over the past 30 to 50 years wherein if anything bad can happen in a sexual relationship the male is always at fault -rare exceptions in both law and plaintiffs noted- and that is certainly something to be mad and upset about.
IF this case gets copied in other state courts (as you seem to have found some lawyers trying to do – I predict mixed results, but even then some men’s lives will be hurt or ruined) then yes this is a full fledged Harbinger of Doom and maybe finally a systematic overreach. However, I suspect these cases will receive short shrift in many state courts, probably in most. One of the few things we men have going for us here is that state civil laws are so fragmented about things like this. Another thing is I doubt this will ever be pushed “above ground” so to speak by mainstream feminist organizations or politicians. Put half your facts in this post up on a major network along with a proposed law that makes men civally or criminally liable for a virus or whatever it is that doesn’t even usually have symptoms in women and that men have no approved test for , and I don’t think it would fly in any state in this union. That’s why the lawyers have to try one state court at a time, and that will greatly slow any adaptations that might occur.
Anyway I do not enjoy arguing with you just to argue. Our one previous interaction ended well. Overall a worthy post for the SpearHead I merely think the concern a bit overblown for now, and I retain my distaste for what our friend the dentist did. They may both have been negligent but to me he seems to be dishonest about it with her in the bargain. Maybe I’m wrong. But I hope I’m not wrong about what should stop this before it gets to truly insane proportions.
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I think more aggrieved men should start suing their wives and girlfriends for infecting them with HPV.
If there’s no male test for HPV, and it can be asymptomatic, then it can’t be disproven. Can it?
That’s right … I’ve got HPV. Do all the tests you wish! Oh, you can’t do any? Well, you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Financial rewards please …
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Clarence:
Glad we can end on a good note again.
In my post, I didn’t really set out to imply that this will be a harbinger of doom. I ended with the line that we’ll soon have to offer contracts before engaging in sexual intercourse with any woman.
But you’re right when you characterize this type of negligence claim as a sort of fly-by-night operation. It’s like tort guerilla warfare. The problem is with the lawyers and with the preponderance of proof-burden on men. Men are the easier target of the two genders; it’s almost always men or patriarchal entities (I consider corporations somewhat masculine and patriarchal) that dole out money to people who have engaged in at least a little negligent behavior themselves. Child toy safety torts, smokers settlements, and now STD trasmission are all cases in which the plaintiffs had at least some responsibility but win against the “bad guys”.
If we think of the whole issue at hand, it has really nothing to do with STDs or sex or anything like that, it has to do with the fact that lawyers will exploit holes in the legal system to win large cash awards for their clients. Once the current hole represented in this case seals up, they’ll move on to some other tortious claim. Again, its easier if that client is female and the defendant is a “bad guy”.
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Chuck,
Yes, it is actionable when a woman does it. Though some may say it, it’s not just a woman’s disease – men risk warts, penile, anal, and throat cancer – so a man’s life could be in jeopardy. Luckily for men, the cancers are less likely to develop in men than cervical dysplasia is in women. But that’s not the only implication for a man with HPV. The judge noted, “Rossiter presented evidence she must inform all future sexual partners of the HPV infection” – a man would have to do the same. That’s a very serious implication, in my view. And just as real for a man as it is for a woman.
You said, “The woman saw the same evidence that Evans did yet she still had sex with him.”
But saying that she saw the warts and then had sex with him is speculative, as there’s no mention of when exactly she saw his warts. To me, it would make no sense for her to have noticed the warts as such prior to them having sex, and I doubt it would have passed legal muster if she had – she would have had notice – unless he lied about what they were – which, given his behavior, doesn’t seem out of the question. (Hypothetical explanation: “There are these new pills on the market to grow bumps on my penis – they’re for your pleasure, darling.” Just kidding.)
You wrote, “Almost no man is educated about the symptoms of STDs … How can a man have negligence if most men don’t know anything about the thing they’re being negligent about? There was no indicator that Evans received STD training during his dentistry training. That is speculative since it isn’t shown in the court document.”
Give men more credit. I’ve spoken to others (men and women) about Gardasil, and I’m always surprised at how little explaining I have to do about what it prevents. In any case, the question isn’t if most, some, or all men in general know it, but if this particular man, in these particular circumstances, knew or should have known – this particular kind of “reasonable” man. That’s the legal standard. As often as the judge mentioned the fact that he is a dentist, I would guess that his background and knowledge came up at trial – and that he had education on the subject. Also this from the pleadings:
“Following the contact on January 1, 2005, Evans … specifically inquired as to whether Karly had ever been specifically tested for Human Papilloma Virus
(“HPVâ€).”
If he specifically asked about HPV a year and a half before Gardasil was released, it sure seems like he knew exactly what he was talking about.
You wrote, “If Evans was negligent, but so was the woman … She continued having sex with him for a year and a half afterward.”
Possibly, but that is a question of comparative negligence, another complicated legal issue that varies from state to state. As far as I can tell, that did not come up in this case. According to him, he just never had it. It seems obvious that that wasn’t the case.
You said, “From my reading of the case, Evans described Bacterial vaginitis to the woman before they had sex.”
I don’t think that’s right: “According to court documents, Rossiter said Evans told her he was free of sexually transmitted diseases, and had not had sex in the six months since he had been tested. … Rossiter said Evans later admitted he had:
-Sex in the six months prior to their encounter.
-Had a relationship with another woman after he and Rossiter had become involved. Evans told her the woman had symptoms like hers…”
I think the main concern for men (and women) should be on the facts that have likely practical implications – not that we’ll get sued, but the other things that have been spoken of. I’m glad you mentioned that condoms do not prevent the spread of HPV, because many people don’t know that. You are concerned that men aren’t educated – and many aren’t – but we need to be. As I stated, men can suffer serious and life-altering implications as a result of this virus. I think someone said earlier that shame (or something to that effect) will keep people from suing and spoke of it as a good thing – did it occur to anyone that that would apply to men too? Should men not be made whole under the law when the situation is reversed – because of shame? I see it as doing a disservice to both sexes in encouraging people who’ve been wronged to stay silent – and in turn, these types of things would never be discussed publicly. They need to be discussed because it is about sexual health. And to think, a lot of this won’t be at issue if both men and women can be vaccinated. HPV can one day be a thing of the past. To me, getting men the vaccine immediately is one of the best things we can do for ourselves – and the women we care about.
Clarence wrote: “We don’t even have the original civil trial transcript here so alot of what we are all doing is guessing as to what made the jury see things the way they did. They obviously found at least one of the plaintiffs claims credible but I suppose we are free to assume that we know better than the jury.”
That’s the thing with public perception: people are sidetracked based on incomplete information. Trials include days or weeks worth of testimony. Most juries are not plaintiff friendly. Most juries aren’t excited about large judgments either, but in this case, a Muscatine Iowa jury not only gave $700,000 in compensatory damages, but another $800,000 in punitive damages for the willful and wanton disregard for the rights and safety of another. They didn’t do it for no reason – they heard both sides and made a decision after over ten hours of deliberation. That’s a message to Evans specifically with his list of bad behavior – not to people who have sex, or to men or women in general. I agree with Tronvold’s quote in an article – they “sent a strong message” based on what they saw and heard in the courtroom. These opinions and news articles may only scratch the surface.
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I think the guy sounds like a dirtbag and I don’t mind that there is some sort of judgement against him.
The amount is totally excessive. It seems like the courts are out to get any guy with any money – they have huge bulleyes on them. Why should this women get $1.5M which is probably 40 years of after tax pay for this.
The lesson from these rulings is that all women should try to sleep with rich or well off guys. Almost no matter what happens (marriage, affair, child, std etc.), the guy will lose and the girl will get a huge windfall.
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To add to my comment, about the bulleye on well off professional guys. I would imagine that there are a lot of slutty women who have spread this or worse diseases yet no one is going file suit against them because they don’t have any money. We all know the (quite true) urban legend about the angry women who spread herpes (much worse than HPV) though casual sex because they are angry at men (and if you don’t believe this – remember in surveys British women give one reason to have sex is to infect someone they don’t like with an STD)
It seems like we have three classes of citizens in courts 1st class – women, 2nd class men, & slave class – men with any money that can be taken
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Let me get this straight. Men must now know for sure their HPV status even though there’s no test they can take to check it? That’s beyond insane.
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He knows about HPV. So what? The order of sex and question tells you nothing about whether the asker knows they have HPV. That the jury decided it did proves they’re idiots. In the heat of the moment asking about HPV may simply have slipped his mind. Afterwards, he thinks “oh shit I’d better ask about this”. Since condoms are effective at preventing contraction of most STDs, but not HPV, why would it be weird he asked about HPV and not the others?
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