LAGUNA HILLS : AIDS-Related Suit Dismissal Upheld

An appellate court has upheld a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed on behalf of Channon Phipps, the 17-year-old hemophiliac who contracted the AIDS virus from tainted blood products.

The 4th District Court of Appeal agreed with a lower court judge who ruled last year that a lack of evidence against Cutter Laboratories Inc. of Berkeley produced a “non-suit.”

Phipps, who lives in Laguna Hills, contracted the human immunodeficiency virus in 1983 when he was 9 years old from a prescription blood coagulant used to treat hemophilia. After he tested HIV positive two years later, his aunt and guardian Deborha Franckewitz sued Cutter, claiming that the firm should have pasteurized the product with a process that had become available in 1983.

The trial court ruled that most of the expert testimony to support Phipps’ case was inadmissible.

“We believe the trial judge’s rulings, which were difficult calls, were correct,” the court said in an opinion released Monday.

Cutter’s parent company, Miles Laboratories, conceded that by the summer of 1983, it had concluded that AIDS was probably caused by a virus.

“However, the adverse witnesses provided no evidence that Miles or anyone else in the industry knew the HIV virus could be transmitted by blood,” the appellate opinion said.