Legal Highlights 2014

• The AIDS Law Project brings suits against Pennsylvania physicians for secret HIV testing.

• The AIDS Law Project files suit against a funeral home that allows a family to mourn over an empty coffin. 

• The AIDS Law Project files suit against a dentist who refuses to treat patients with HIV/AIDS.

• The Philadelphia District EEOC Office finds that limiting health insurance coverage based on HIV/AIDS violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

• An AIDS discrimination case brought by the AIDS Law Project with the Justice Department against Philadelphia emergency medical technicians results in the first consent decree under the ADA.

• The AIDS Law Project sues the 12^th Street Gym for AIDS discrimination.
• Our case, Doe v. Rite Aid/SEPTA, raises questions about the confidentiality of employee health and prescription information.

• The Pennsylvania Legislature adopts the Standby Guardianship Law, proposed and drafted by the AIDS Law Project’s Parents with HIV/AIDS Project.
• The AIDS Law Project negotiates a financial settlement for a Delaware County man who was fired from his job, after his partner was diagnosed with AIDS.

• The AIDS Law Project fights name-based HIV test reports.
• Client: A North Philadelphia man with AIDS, refused access to a bus because the driver doesn’t believe he is disabled, is financially compensated and the bus company adopts an anti-discrimination policy.
• Client: An HIV-positive Peruvian man living in South Philadelphia is granted asylum in the United States, sparing him deportation to an antagonistic regime.

• Names-based HIV reporting begins in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia is exempted.
• The AIDS Law Project sues a bus company whose driver attempted to deny service to a group of HIV-activists traveling to a rally in Harrisburg.

• The AIDS Law Project wins a financial settlement from a dentist who refused to treat a man with AIDS.

• The AIDS Law Project wins a liver transplant for an Altoona man for whom Medicaid denied coverage. HIV is removed from the state’s list of “life-limiting conditions” as a result.

• The case of M. Smith v. Life Partners draws international media attention to the work of the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania. The company had threatened to stop paying the client’s health insurance premiums.
• We persuade Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs not to enforce regulations that conflict with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) preventing people with HIV/AIDS from working in a number of fields, including barbering and cosmetology.
• The AIDS Law Project settles a major ADA suit against the City of Philadelphia Emergency Medical Technicians, in which the City agrees to pay significant damages to the client, adhere to a nondiscrimination policy and train all personnel on infection control and HIV/AIDS transmission.

• The AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania negotiates another settlement in the unlawful firing of a food-service worker who has HIV.

• After our policy work, Pennsylvania decides to allow pharmacy sales of hypodermic needles and syringes without a prescription in an effort to help reduce the spread of HIV and of hepatitis C.
• Life Partners settles the M. Smith lawsuit for $250,000, allowing her to arrange for her own health insurance.
• We “clear the path” for domestic partners to take advantage of a Philadelphia law exempting city tax on property transfers.

• The AIDS Law Project wins another liver-transplant case for a client with HIV who had been denied by Medicare.
• We won more than $60,000 for a client who had been wrongfully kicked out of a personal care home because she has HIV.
• Our work resulted in a financial services company being ordered to pay retirement money of a deceased doctor to his longtime partner, as he had intended, instead of his ex-wife, from whom he had been divorced for 25 years.

• The AIDS Law Project persuades the state of PA to revise regulations on occupational and professional licensing to protect workers and job applicants that have HIV.
• We win a settlement for an HIV-positive single mother of four fired from her job at a snack-food manufacturer after her supervisors found out her status.

• The AIDS Law Project negotiates a settlement in the case of a national health care staffing firm that took back a job offer from an HIV-positive nursing assistant after learning he has HIV. In addition, the firm agrees to change its hiring policies.
• A 14-year-old and his mother, both our clients, receive $700,000 from the Milton Hershey School in a federal AIDS-discrimination lawsuit settlement after the school refused to admit him solely because he has HIV.

• The AIDS Law Project negotiates a settlement in the case of a national health care staffing firm that took back a job offer from an HIV-positive nursing assistant after learning he has HIV. In addition, the firm agrees to change its hiring policies.

September

• The AIDS Law Project settled a case on behalf of a hospital patient with HIV who was recovering from surgery when his doctor disclosed his status to a visitor.

October

• The AIDS Law Project negotiated a settlement on behalf of a man who was fired from job at a residential facility for troubled youth when his employer found out he has HIV. He got his job, back pay and compensatory damages.

May

• The AIDS Law Project negotiated a settlement on behalf of HIV-positive man and his HIV-negative wife and child who were dismissed from a medical practice because of the man’s HIV. The practice financially compensated the family and agreed to provide mandatory-attendance training for all staff.

July

• The AIDS Law Project negotiated a settlement with a physical rehabilitation center on behalf of a woman who was denied access to paraffin wax treatment because she has HIV. The rehab agreed to compensate the client, but changed its standards to require all patients to wear gloves for the paraffin wax treatment.

September

• A Montgomery County hospital agreed to pay $25,000 to settle a claim on behalf of our client who said she was denied bariatric surgery because she is HIV positive.