Kobey Suit Faults Failure to Tell Him of AIDS Exposure

Swap-meet czar Monte Kobey has sued Alvarado Hospital and the San Diego Blood Bank, charging that officials with the two organizations withheld from him for six months their knowledge that a unit of blood platelets he received in a transfusion was contaminated with the AIDS virus.

During those six months, Kobey made a number of unsuccessful investments, was deprived of medical care and needlessly exposed his wife to the virus, the lawsuit claims.

Filed in San Diego Superior Court on Monday, the lawsuit is believed to be the first nationwide to target the alleged concealment of information from a patient who received AIDS-tainted blood products.

Typically, patients afflicted with the deadly disease have filed lawsuits claiming that blood banks and hospitals are to blame for their infection with the virus. That is not true in the case of Kobey, president of a corporation that runs the hugely successful swap meet at the Sports Arena.

Occurred Before Testing

“It’s not the blood bank’s fault that the blood was tainted, because this occurred before donors were tested for AIDS,” said Daniel Broderick, attorney for Kobey and his wife, Charlotte. “It is their fault that they knew of Mr. Kobey’s exposure and just didn’t tell him until six months later when he was in the hospital with AIDS.”

The suit claims that Kobey was infected with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS during a blood transfusion he received while undergoing an October, 1984, coronary bypass operation at Alvarado Hospital Medical Center.

Kobey alleges that, in late 1986 or early 1987, the blood bank learned that the platelets he had received were from a donor with AIDS antibodies in his system. According to the lawsuit, blood bank officials sent a letter to Alvarado Hospital on Feb. 25, 1987, informing the facility’s executive director that the platelets received by Kobey were contaminated.

“At this time, Alvarado Hospital and the blood bank were also well-aware that there was no way Mr. Kobey could learn of the possibility he had been exposed to the AIDS virus . . . unless one of them told him,” the lawsuit says. “They were the only ones who knew.”

However, it was not until six months later, when Kobey was hospitalized for a suspected infection in his brain, that he learned he had AIDS and had been infected with the virus during the transfusion.

“During that six months, Mr. Kobey initiated numerous business deals and made many financial commitments that he never would have undertaken had he known he was infected,” Broderick said. “Many of those have failed because he was in such poor health he was utterly incapable of carrying them through. He has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Among other pursuits, Kobey opened Kobey’s Downtown in the former Walker Scott department store at 5th Avenue and Broadway. That venture failed last fall after Kobey was diagnosed with AIDS.

Moreover, his wife, Charlotte, was unknowingly and needlessly exposed to the disease because Kobey was kept in the dark about his infection, the suit claims. Although Broderick said Mrs. Kobey has so far tested negative for the AIDS virus, the lawsuit notes that “it is possible that she will develop AIDS in the future” as a result of her exposure.

The lawsuit charges the hospital and the blood bank with negligence and willful misconduct. It seeks unspecified general and punitive damages as well as reimbursement for loss of income, future earnings, and medical and incidental expenses incurred because of the alleged misconduct. Kobey could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Lynn Stedd, a spokeswoman for the San Diego Blood Bank, said she had not seen the lawsuit and cannot comment on it. She said that, since

September, 1986, the organization has complied with national guidelines that call for blood banks to notify hospitals when they determine that blood they provided was contaminated.

“When a donor comes in and tests positive for the AIDS antibody, we check to see if he has donated in the past, and, if he has, we let the hospitals know,” Stedd said. “It’s their responsibility from that point.”

Paul Russell, senior vice president for Alvarado’s parent company, National Medical Enterprises in Los Angeles, also declined to comment on the lawsuit, which he had not yet seen.

Russell said he was not familiar with the hospital’s policy on informing patients who received contaminated blood. But when asked whether the hospital would deliberately hide from a patient the fact that possible infection had occurred, he replied: “Certainly not.”

Broderick said the hospital’s attorneys have told him they never received a letter from the blood bank in February. He said hospital officials maintain that they did not receive word the blood was tainted until July, 1987.

“Even if that’s true--and it appears to me that the letter was sent in February--they took another month and a half before informing Mr. Kobey,” Broderick said. “Apparently, they had meetings, and conferences with their attorneys, and were trying to figure out what to do.”

Timothy Pestotnik, a San Diego attorney who tracks AIDS litigation, said most AIDS-related cases have been filed by patients who contend that they contracted the disease through tainted blood. He said many of those lawsuits filed by patients who received blood before the test screening donors was established in March, 1985, have been successful.

“If the plaintiff can establish a link between their receipt of a tainted blood product and acquiring AIDS, then an action should (succeed),” Pestotnik said. “That’s been the way the courts have analyzed these cases throughout the country.”

The Kobey case is the second lawsuit filed against the San Diego Blood Bank. A wrongful-death suit was filed last year by Dorothy Polikoff, the widow of an AIDS patient, who claimed that the blood bank should have excluded members of high-risk groups from its donor pool.