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Jurors Award $14.5 Million to Hudson’s Lover

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Times Staff Writers

Rock Hudson’s lover was awarded $14.5 million in damages Wednesday after a Los Angeles Superior Court jury found that the late actor and his private secretary had engaged in “outrageous conduct” by concealing that Hudson was suffering from AIDS.

The award against Hudson’s estate was widely--but not universally--hailed in the gay community. Several attorneys who handle lawsuits involving AIDS said they were surprised by the jury’s decision and called it a potential landmark case.

Called ‘Outrageous’

“Given the facts in the case, the verdict seems pretty outrageous,” said Ben Schatz, an attorney with National Gay Rights Advocates in San Francisco.

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The jury deliberated three days before voting 10 to 2 that Hudson and his private secretary had intentionally concealed from Marc Christian that Hudson, who died in 1985, was suffering from the disease.

While jury decisions must be unanimous in criminal trials, civil cases can be determined on a vote of at least nine jurors on a 12-member panel.

Christian, 35, did not talk to reporters after the verdict, but he was unable to suppress an occasional broad smile. His attorney, Harold Rhoden, said a gag order on participants in the case is still in effect, “but I do think I can say, ‘Thank you.’ ”

Outside the courtroom, Rhoden told reporters, “You don’t have to have a comment from a lawyer to know how elated he (Christian) would be.”

Attorneys for the estate and Hudson’s private secretary, Mark Miller, 55, did not comment on the verdict, but an appeal of the award is a virtual certainty, legal observers said.

Although there have been numerous lawsuits by people seeking damages from lovers who gave them a sexually transmitted disease, personal injury lawyers said the Hudson case is unique and could set a precedent because Christian has continued to test negative for the human immunodeficiency virus that leads to AIDS.

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No plaintiff who had tested negative for AIDS had previously won such a verdict, lawyers said. The jury will resume its deliberations this morning to determine exemplary and punitive damages against Miller.

The key issue in the case was whether Hudson had a legal duty to warn Christian that he had acquired immune deficiency syndrome and whether Christian was entitled to damages just for being exposed to the virus. The jury found that the late actor had such a duty and engaged in “outrageous conduct” by exposing Christian to the fatal disease.

Emotional Distress Claimed

Christian said he suffered extreme emotional distress after he learned from a 1985 television broadcast that Hudson was dying of AIDS. Christian, a former bartender who met Hudson at a political fund-raiser, testified that he and Hudson engaged in frequent, high-risk sex for eight months after Hudson was diagnosed as having the disease.

“Since Christian freely engaged in unprotected sex and never became infected, the amount he was awarded seems somewhat hysterical,” said the National Gay Rights Advocates’ Schatz.

“The courts aren’t going to resolve this issue. People will have to do it for themselves.”

Los Angeles attorney Griffith D. Thomas disagreed, saying that the verdict could have a positive effect by reminding people they have a legal duty to warn their sex partners if they know they have a communicable disease.

“The jury must have looked at it like the king and his court taking advantage of a helpless person,” said Thomas, who specializes in gay discrimination cases. “Although you could show infliction of emotional damage, I don’t see how if a man is HIV negative that they could find damages on that basis.”

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The jury’s decision, however, was hailed by several leading gay community activists.

Morris Kight, a co-founder of the Gay Community Services Center, said that Christian was “exploited” and “should have been informed of Mr. Hudson’s physical condition. Then he could have made an informed decision on whether he should remain with Mr. Hudson or alter their sexual practices.”

‘A Value Lesson’

Dave Johnson, executive director of Being Alive, a coalition of Los Angeles residents suffering from AIDS, said his organization’s position “is that a person who is infected with the virus should not be having unsafe sex, period.”

While Kight predicted that the court decision would have “a powerful impact . . . as a value lesson to confide in their potential sexual partners,” Mark Kostopoulos, a spokesperson for ACT UP/LA cautioned that the case could give people “a false sense of security.

“I think the case sends exactly the wrong message. We first have to teach people to practice safe sex--no matter who they are with or what those people say.”

During the five-week trial before Judge Bruce R. Geernaert, the press and a parade of curious onlookers staked out the courtroom to catch glimpses of Hudson’s love life, the subject of more than 20 years of rumors and speculation. They were not disappointed.

Christian testified that he and Hudson dated about 80 times before they had sex and often spent the afternoons making love in hotels along the Southern California coast. Although Christian said he had up to 15 male lovers before meeting Hudson, he said the two men maintained a monogamous, loving relationship.

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Christian said that even when Hudson became ill and lost more than 30 pounds, he believed the actor’s repeated denials that he had AIDS. He told the jury that Hudson told him that he was drinking too much and was dieting “because I want to look like I did when I made

‘Pillow Talk’ with Doris Day.”

During final arguments Rhoden told the jury that little was known about AIDS when the two men lived together and that Christian believed Hudson’s denials because he was in love with him.

“He engaged in sex voluntarily,” Rhoden said. “If they had met today, there might be an argument that he should have known better.”

In 1983, when the men became lovers, Rhoden said, “There was no reason to use a condom. There was no reason for Marc Christian to believe he could get AIDS from Hudson.”

Rhoden contended that Christian, an aspiring musician who lived with Hudson in the last two years of his life, was entitled to compensation for the “enhanced fear” that he suffered when he found out that his lover had AIDS.

However, attorneys for Miller and Hudson’s estate portrayed Christian as a money-grabbing opportunist who used his relationship with Hudson to further his ambitions for an acting career. Estate lawyer Robert Parker Mills told the jury that Christian just wanted to make a quick buck from Hudson’s will and filed the lawsuit to gain publicity.

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The attorneys also pointed to a series of interviews Christian gave to Penthouse, the “Larry King Show,” and the “Phil Donahue Show” as proof he was trying to cash in on the relationship. Under cross-examination, Christian also admitted that he was working on a book about his relationship with Hudson, entitled “Between Rock and a Hard Place,” but later abandoned the project.

The trial contained several bizarre and sensational revelations about Hudson, including Christian’s testimony that the actor refused to take him to a state dinner at the White House because he feared Nancy Reagan would discover he was gay.

Christian also told the jury that minutes after Hudson died of complications from AIDS on Oct. 2, 1985, Pat Boone’s wife, Shirley, performed spiritual incantations over Hudson’s body and spoke in tongues trying to remove the disease from his body.

Under the best of circumstances, Christian will have to wait at least three years before he sees any of his award, legal observers said.

Judge Geernaert could rule that the evidence did not support the verdict and reduce the award. If he upholds the jury, the case will then begin wending its way through the appellate courts.

Times staff writers Paul Feldman and Hector Tobar contributed to this article.

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