Geico ordered to pay $5.2M to woman who claims she caught STD during sex in car

A Missouri woman who claimed she caught a sexually transmitted disease when she had sex with her boyfriend in his vehicle has been awarded a $5.2 million settlement from her now-ex-partner’s car insurance company.

The state Court of Appeals on Tuesday affirmed the multimillion-dollar payout against Geico that had been entered through arbitration after the company claimed errors were made in Jackson County Circuit Court, the Kansas City Star reported.

In February 2021, the woman — identified in court papers as M.O. — informed Geico of her intention to seek damages after she allegedly contracted HPV, the human papillomavirus, from her then-beau in his car.

GEICO headquarters
A woman has been awarded a $5.2 million settlement against Geico after she allegedly contracted an STD during sex in a car.
Couple pressing hands against steamy car window
The Missouri Court of Appeals on Tuesday affirmed the multimillion-dollar payout against Geico.

She claimed he caused her to catch the STD when he knew of his condition and the risks of unprotected sex.

Start your day with all you need to know

Morning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.Enter your email address

By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

An arbitrator later found that the couple’s sex in the vehicle “directly caused, or directly contributed to cause” the HPV infection.

The woman was awarded the $5.2 million from Geico after the man was found liable for not disclosing his infection, according to the news outlet.

The insurer asked for the award to be tossed out, claiming the judgment violated its rights to due process, but its request was denied and it appealed.

On Tuesday, the three-judge panel found that the lower court did not err by denying Geico’s motions, saying the company did not have a right to “relitigate those issues.” 

One of the judges concurred but said the company was offered “no meaningful opportunity to participate” in the lawsuit and existing law “relegat(es) the insurer to the status of a bystander.”136

What do you think? Post a comment.

The Post has reached out to Geico for comment.

Advertisement

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: