AIDS Victim Wins Bias Ruling After His Death

WASHINGTON — The complainant--although he had died earlier--was ruled a victim of discrimination in the first civil rights case involving AIDS to be decided, a Health and Human Services Department official announced Wednesday.

The complaint was filed in July, 1984, by a registered nurse in Atlanta who was forced either to take a leave of absence or to resign when he was diagnosed as having AIDS. He died last February. Officials did not disclose the details that led to the decision earlier this week in his favor by the HHS Office of Civil Rights.

“This is a shocking instance of where a complainant died before the investigation of the complaint was terminated,” said Thomas B. Stoddard, executive director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, who represented the complainant.

The decision was made after the Justice Department’s controversial ruling in June that denies AIDS victims and people perceived to have the disease protection under federal laws that prohibit discrimination against the handicapped.

Shortly after that ruling, federal health officials were described as unhappy with the decision, contending that its medical judgments do not reflect “new scientific or medical information on AIDS transmissions.” The officials said that the disease cannot be transmitted through casual contact.

However, the HHS Office of Civil Rights said Wednesday that it will comply with the Justice Department’s decision where applicable in 16 pending AIDS-related cases.

“I must accept what the Justice Department says,” said Betty Lou Dotson, director of the HHS Office of Civil Rights, in testimony before the House government operations subcommittee on intergovernmental relations during a hearing on civil rights law enforcement.

Case by Case

“We’ll deal with it on a case-by-case basis, based on what the investigation of facts reveals,” Dotson said.

Hal M. Freeman, former San Francisco regional director of the Office of Civil Rights, earlier accused the office of discriminating against AIDS-related cases by foot-dragging in investigations and by failing to develop policy to deal with the growing number of cases.

“They can wait out these cases, given the nature of the disease,” which is fatal, Freeman said in an interview after his testimony. “I don’t think it’s a conscious, callous decision, but I think they’re aware that, yes, if they wait long enough they won’t have to come to terms with it.”