The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case to decidewhether the separate disease rule — also known as the “two-diseaserule” — should be expanded to cases involving HIV and AIDS.
The timing could be right for the plaintiffs in the case. The lasttime the court was faced with the issue of applying the two-diseaserule outside the scope of asbestos cases it let stand a Superior Courtdecision that barred a patient’s suit against his doctors over theiralleged failure to diagnose his liver condition from claiming damagesfor fear of liver cancer. But the court in Klein v. Weisberg saidthe man could sue later if he developed cancer.
