Marine Wins $3.5 Million in AIDS Suit : Health: The officer blames blood transfusion at a Navy hospital for his wife’s infection, which was then passed to other members of the family.

Several weeks ago, as Marine Warrant Officer Martin Gaffney recalled, he sat down with his 7-year-old daughter Maureene and discussed the workings of the HIV virus that killed her mother, Mutsuko, her baby brother, John Martin--and someday is likely to kill Martin Gaffney himself.

On Tuesday, a federal judge here awarded Gaffney $3,493,451 as compensation for loss of earnings that he is expected to incur, and for earnings lost as a result of the wrongful death of his wife and son.

An earlier liability phase of the trial before Judge Rya Zobel had upheld Gaffney’s claim that the family was infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS as a result of a blood transfusion Mutsuko Gaffney underwent in 1981 at Long Beach Naval Hospital in California when the Gaffneys’ first child, a son named Martin Shin, was stillborn.

“I am furious with the government,” Gaffney, 42, said Tuesday in slow, measured tones. “Today what I feel is anger, and a lot of hatred.”

Medical experts who testified in the trial said Gaffney’s white blood cell count is low, and that he has a 22% chance of developing AIDS within the next three years. Through some miracle, Maureene Gaffney escaped infection with the virus, the only member of her family to do so.

“I brought this suit so she will be taken care of,” Gaffney said.

The legal and medical saga of the Gaffney family began in 1981, when Navy doctors allowed Mutsuko Gaffney to carry her first pregnancy to 44 weeks, four weeks beyond a normal full-term gestation. Claims involving Martin Shin Gaffney, the child who was stillborn, were dismissed from the lawsuit because the law in California, where his birth occurred, does not acknowledge stillborn children as viable human beings, Gaffney said.

In the course of bringing his lawsuit, Gaffney said he learned that one of the donors of blood transfused into Mutsuko Gaffney at the time of the stillbirth was later dismissed from the military because of homosexuality. Contacted for a deposition, the donor refused to be tested for the HIV virus, Gaffney said, but did extend an apology to Gaffney and his family.

Gaffney said that was more than he had heard from the U.S. government. “What bothers me is the cold-blooded way this whole case has been handled,” he said. “The government should have recognized their responsibility for the devastation of my family. The very least they could have done is apologize.”

With his daughter beside him, thumbing through books and occasionally dozing on her father’s lap, Gaffney sat stone-faced while lawyers disputed the dollars and cents of his family’s existence. Mary Elizabeth Carmody, a senior litigator with the U.S. Attorney’s office here, stated, for example that it was “complete speculation” as to whether Gaffney might ever have been promoted to captain or even to major had illness not struck.

Carmody cited a figure of approximately $1.2 million as compensation for Gaffney’s potential loss in income and retirement benefits as well as for the lost incomes of his wife and son John Martin.

Gaffney’s attorney, Jaclyn McKenney, reached higher figures in her computations of what Gaffney should be entitled to for his own lost earnings and for those of his wife and son.

Judge Zobel left certain medical expenses open to future resolution. She used careful and occasionally complex calculations to reach some parts of her decision and relied on “Solomonic choice” to make other parts.

Lawyers for both sides said they would consider the possibility of an appeal.

Gaffney said he was pleased that Maureene had accompanied him to court on Tuesday.

“I was told that the judge would announce the award, and I wanted that done in front of my daughter,” Gaffney said.

“She’s the real victim,” he said. “She’s the one whose entire family has been wiped out. And if they’re going to put a dollar figure on that, they’re going to do it in front of her.”