San Diego

Swap meet owners Monte and Charlotte Kobey have settled a lawsuit against a local hospital and blood bank.

The case charged that the two defendants withheld for six months their knowledge that Monte Kobey had been given AIDS-tainted blood, lawyers said.

Attorneys on all sides said Wednesday that they were pleased with the settlement but could not release details because San Diego Superior Court Judge James R. Milliken ordered them not to do so.

The case was one of the first to involve not an assertion of wrongdoing by a blood bank or hospital in collecting blood but a claim that the bank or hospital did not properly notify a blood recipient of problems with the blood, said Duncan Barr, a San Francisco attorney who represented the San Diego Blood Bank in the suit.

The Kobeys sued the blood bank and Alvarado Hospital Medical Center in August, 1988, after Monte Kobey was infected with the HIV virus, which causes aids, during a blood transfusion. Kobey received the blood during an October, 1984, coronary bypass operation at the hospital.

The Kobeys alleged that, in late 1986 or early 1987, the blood bank learned the platelets he received were from a donor with AIDS antibodies. Blood bank officials sent the hospital a letter in February, 1987, saying the blood Kobey received was contaminated, but Kobey didn’t learn until six months later that he had been infected, the suit claimed.

The blood bank began routine AIDS testing of donor blood in March, 1985, about six months after Kobey’s surgery.

Neither Monte nor Charlotte Kobey could be reached Wednesday for comment. Charlotte Kobey reportedly has tested negative so far for the AIDS virus.

The Kobeys operate the giant swap meet at the Sports Arena parking lot.