The Connecticut Supreme Court has ordered a new trial in the case of a young medical resident who pricked her finger on an HIV-contaminated needle, and who subsequently won one of the largest damage verdicts in Connecticut history.
Although the state’s high court agreed that the plaintiff had a valid cause of action to sue in Doe v. Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital, it also said that the trial court erred in not allowing the defendants to present an argument that they were immune from the suit under workers’ compensation statutes. The high court also ruled that the trial judge did not make clear to the jury that they must rely on expert witness testimony in deciding certain health care questions.
