(Newser)
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Reason to wear a condom No. 437: Giving someone an STD can be really expensive. A 49-year-old Oregon woman won a lawsuit last week against the 69-year-old man she says gave her genital herpes on their fourth date, the Oregonian reports. The jury awarded her $900,000, almost the entire amount she'd been asking for, declaring that the incident had been 75% the man's fault. "We all felt he should have told her—he had a responsibility to tell her," one juror said. The plaintiff claimed the man had agreed to use a condom, but changed his mind at the last second, and only mentioned the disease afterward.
STD lawsuits are rare because it's hard to prove such claims, but the woman shared medical records showing she'd had a clean bill of health two months earlier. She also described a miserable aftermath, complete with medications that caused hair loss and weight gain, and depression. Her attorney called her heroic for pursuing the case, knowing it would be "embarrassing [and] massively unpleasant." But the defense attorney disagreed. "Grow up. Come on. You're an adult," he said. "She is not some little innocent victim."
