Worcester Jury Awards $3.7 Million to Woman Treated for HIV She Never Had

In the late 1990s, Audrey Serrano, a Fitchburg woman, received a diagnosis of HIV from Dr. Kwan Lai, who practiced at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center's HIV clinic in Worcester. Acting on that diagnosis, Dr. Lai placed Serrano on combination antiretroviral therapy, the potent drug regimens typically reserved for confirmed HIV infection.

Serrano took those medications for close to nine years. During that stretch she experienced depression, chronic fatigue, significant weight loss, diminished appetite, and intestinal inflammation. The treatments were causing real harm to a woman who, according to the evidence presented at trial, never had the disease those treatments were meant to control.

Growing suspicious of her condition, Serrano sought testing at a different hospital in 2003. Those results showed no HIV infection. She filed suit the same year, naming Dr. Lai as the defendant.

At trial, plaintiff's attorney David Angueira of Swartz and Swartz argued that Dr. Lai had repeatedly failed to order definitive confirmatory HIV tests, even as routine blood monitoring produced no detectable trace of the virus. Angueira characterized the failure as a pattern of relying on assumptions about a patient's lifestyle rather than on the laboratory evidence in front of the doctor. Dr. Lai's defense maintained that her initial diagnosis was supported by abnormal blood cell counts and the patient's own medical history, and that she had followed standard care protocols throughout.

The jury deliberated for two days before returning a verdict for Serrano. The panel awarded $2.5 million in compensatory damages. With pre-judgment interest added, the total judgment came to approximately $3.7 million. The verdict was reported by Worcester Superior Court records on December 13, 2007.