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LEGAL NEWSLINE

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Court: Shock of learning HIV news 15 months after test justifies $45K judgment against doctor

State Court
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NEW ORLEANS (Legal Newsline) – A doctor and his practice have again been told to pay $45,000 for causing emotional distress when he kept an HIV-positive diagnosis from one of his patients for 15 months.

On April 15, the Louisiana’s Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed an Orleans Parish ruling against Dr. Jeffrey Coco and Internal Medicine Specialist, Inc. Coco had argued it was not his practice to deliver such bad news over the phone, and plaintiff Thomas Dufreche never followed up about his test results anyway.

But the court found Dr. Coco never informed Dufreche of his no-call policy, which would have required Dufreche to make a follow-up appointment simply to receive test results.

“Instead, the record shows that Dr. Coco received Mr. Dufreche’s test results, reviewed them on two separate occasions, and yet, took no steps to notify Mr. Dufreche that he was HIV-positive,” the opinion says.

The court also noted that Dr. Coco admitted to breaching a standard of care because, as an infectious disease specialist, he allowed Dufreche to go more than a year before learning of his diagnosis.

The test was administered in June 2012, and Dr. Coco had the results a few weeks later. No one at IMS informed Dufreche that his test results were in.

Dr. Coco again reviewed the test results several months later so he could sign Dufreche’s medical chart. Again, he was not notified.

Dr. Coco told the court he never discusses the results of HIV tests over the phone because of the need to provide counseling and treatment options to the patient. But he could not prove that he or his staff ever told Dufreche about that policy.

“When he received no communication from Dr. Coco or IMS and his symptoms subsided, Mr. Dufreche assumed that, as Dr. Coco had said, his symptoms were the result of a virus that had run its course and the results of the HIV test were negative,” the decision says.

Fifteen months after the original test, another doctor performed an HIV test. Before Dufreche got those results, a Louisiana Department of Health worker contacted Dufreche to offer him help finding medical care. She had the results from Dr. Coco’s test.

That was the way the news was broke to Dufreche that he was HIV positive. Part of his lawsuit called for damages for the psychological shock of finding out this way.

He also alleged emotional distress from worrying about how the delay in treatment would affect him and whether he infected someone.

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