Experts: Ruling could spur more lawsuits between ex-lovers

Sunday, Jan. 23, 2000 | 2:46 a.m.

The court ruled Jan. 13 that Pahrump Town Board member Mary E. Wilson can sue Las Vegas gambling executive Ronald J. Radcliffe for $15 million in damages because she suspects he knowingly gave her the diseases.

"There is some potential for the decision to open up the courts to these kinds of cases," said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Boyd School of Law. "But I suspect plaintiffs will have great difficulty in proving them."

Tobias predicted the decision would lead to out-of-court settlements by people not eager to air their sexual histories in courtrooms.

Donald Kwalick, the Clark County Health District's chief health officer, agreed the cases would be difficult to prove.

"It is really a 'his word' versus 'her word' thing to decide," he told a Las Vegas newspaper.

State Health Officer Mary Guinan said the decision could open the door for one partner to exact revenge against the other by filing a lawsuit.

"I have seen it so many times - one goes off and leaves the other, and the other wants revenge," she said. "I have testified in these cases."

In issuing its ruling, the Supreme Court threw out an earlier judgment against Wilson by Clark District Judge Gene Porter.

Porter ruled that Wilson, 46, could not prove with reliable scientific evidence that only Radcliffe could have infected her with herpes and human papillomavirus.

But the high court ruled Wilson doesn't have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Radcliffe transmitted the diseases during their relationship, which lasted from April 1995 to May 1996.

Radcliffe argued the latest research concludes that the exact time and source of the viral infections can't be determined.