In most states, there is no specific law that makes it illegal to not tell someone you have HPV before sexual contact. But the absence of a disclosure statute is not a safe harbor. If you knew you carried the virus and transmitted it to a partner without warning, you can be sued in civil court, and under broad communicable-disease statutes you could theoretically face criminal charges, though that almost never happens in practice. The real legal risk is a personal injury lawsuit, and the exposure can be significant.
Criminal Charges Are Rare and Hard to Bring
The wave of STD criminalization laws passed in the late 1980s and 1990s was driven almost entirely by HIV. Roughly 38 states have laws criminalizing HIV exposure or transmission of infectious diseases, but these statutes typically target HIV by name or require proof that the defendant “knowingly” transmitted a “serious” communicable disease.1Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Duty to Warn for Health Care Settings HPV is almost never named.
Even where a broader statute could theoretically cover HPV, the practical barriers are close to insurmountable. A prosecutor would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew they had HPV, failed to disclose it, and was the actual source of the plaintiff’s infection. There is no approved HPV screening test for men, and the CDC does not recommend routine HPV testing for men at all. Proving a male defendant “knew” he was infected is a problem before causation even enters the picture. No widely reported criminal prosecution for HPV nondisclosure has succeeded.
The Real Risk Is a Civil Lawsuit
Where criminal law mostly ignores HPV, civil law does not. Courts have allowed personal injury claims to proceed under several legal theories, and the financial exposure can be substantial. In a widely reported Missouri case, an arbitrator awarded $5.2 million to a woman who contracted HPV from a partner who allegedly knew of his diagnosis and failed to disclose it. That number is unusual, and the case involved HPV that progressed to cancer, but it shows how high the stakes can climb.
Negligence
The most common theory is negligence. Everyone has a duty to take reasonable steps to avoid foreseeable harm to others. If you know, or reasonably should know, that you carry HPV and you have sex without disclosing it or taking precautions, a court can find you breached that duty. The plaintiff doesn’t need to prove you intended to cause harm, only that a reasonable person in your position would have acted differently. A Louisiana appellate court upheld a negligence verdict against a husband who infected his wife with an STD, finding that adequate evidence supported the conclusion he “knew or should have known” about his condition.2LSU Law. Meany v. Meany, 639 So.2d 229 (La. 1994)
Battery
Battery is an intentional, harmful, or offensive touching without valid consent. In HPV cases, the argument is not that the sexual contact itself was nonconsensual but that the consent was defective. If your partner would not have agreed to sex had they known your HPV status, a court can treat that missing information as invalidating consent. Battery claims carry more weight when the defendant actively concealed a known diagnosis rather than simply failing to volunteer the information.
Fraudulent Misrepresentation
If a partner directly asks whether you have any STDs and you lie, the exposure jumps sharply. Fraudulent misrepresentation requires an affirmative falsehood, not just silence, so it applies specifically when you are asked and give a dishonest answer. Courts treat this as the most blameworthy form of nondisclosure, and damages tend to be higher.
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
In cases involving especially egregious conduct, a plaintiff may add a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. This requires showing extreme and outrageous behavior that caused severe emotional suffering. Simply failing to disclose probably doesn’t meet that bar. But a pattern of lying, infecting multiple partners, or reckless indifference can get this claim in front of a jury.
What a Plaintiff Has to Prove
Filing a case is one thing. Winning it is harder, because the plaintiff carries the burden on several elements that are genuinely difficult in HPV cases.
Knowledge
The plaintiff must show the defendant knew, or reasonably should have known, they had HPV. A prior positive test or a documented diagnosis makes this straightforward. Without that, it becomes a battle of inference drawn from past medical records, testimony from former partners who were diagnosed, or evidence that a doctor warned the defendant about possible exposure.2LSU Law. Meany v. Meany, 639 So.2d 229 (La. 1994) Because there is no approved male HPV test and the virus can lie dormant for years without symptoms, many defendants genuinely had no idea they were infected.3PMC (PubMed Central). Human Papillomavirus in Older Women: New Infection or Reactivation?
Causation
This is where most HPV cases fall apart. The plaintiff has to prove the defendant was the specific source of the infection. More than 42 million Americans currently carry HPV strains known to cause disease, and roughly 13 million new infections occur every year. The CDC estimates that nearly everyone who is not vaccinated will contract HPV at some point.4Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About HPV A defendant can argue the plaintiff caught it from someone else entirely. HPV genotyping can identify specific viral strains, and matching strains between partners strengthens the causal link, but the same strain circulates widely, so a match supports the claim without proving it conclusively. Expert medical testimony is typically required, and the opposing side will have its own experts.
Damages
The plaintiff must show actual harm. Medical expenses for treating genital warts, managing abnormal cervical cells, or undergoing procedures related to HPV-linked cancers all count. Emotional distress, pain, and the impact on future relationships can also factor in.
Defenses If You’re the One Being Sued
The most powerful defense is lack of knowledge. A defendant who was never tested, never diagnosed, and never had symptoms can argue they had no reason to believe they carried HPV. Given how many people are asymptomatic carriers, that defense is credible in a large number of cases.
Comparative negligence is another meaningful tool. In most states, a plaintiff’s recovery can be reduced in proportion to their own fault. If the plaintiff never asked about their partner’s STD status, declined to use protection, or chose not to get the HPV vaccine despite being in the recommended age group, a defendant can argue the plaintiff failed to take reasonable precautions for their own safety. That rarely eliminates liability entirely, but it can meaningfully reduce damages.
Defendants also attack causation head-on. Because HPV is so common and can remain dormant for years, pointing to prior partners or the plaintiff’s broader sexual history can introduce enough uncertainty to break the causal chain.
How Long You Have to Sue
Every state imposes a statute of limitations on personal injury claims. These deadlines generally range from one to six years, with most states falling in the two-to-three-year range. Miss the deadline and the case is dead regardless of its merits.
HPV complicates these timelines because the virus can remain dormant for years before causing symptoms. The discovery rule, where it applies, pauses the clock until the date the plaintiff knew, or reasonably should have known, about their injury. If an abnormal Pap result comes three years after the relationship ended, the limitations clock may not have started until that diagnosis. The “reasonably should have known” standard matters: if you had symptoms or test results suggesting a problem and ignored them, a court can treat that as the discovery date. Not every state applies the discovery rule to STD transmission claims, so the real deadline depends heavily on where you live.
Your Medical Records Will Come Out
People often assume HIPAA shields their health information from a lawsuit. It doesn’t, at least not fully. Federal privacy regulations allow healthcare providers to release protected health information in response to a court order.5eCFR. 45 CFR 164.512 Even without a court order, medical records can be disclosed in response to a subpoena or discovery request if certain procedural safeguards are met, such as notifying the patient and allowing time to object.6U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Judicial and Administrative Proceedings
In practice, STD test results, treatment records, and sexual health history on both sides can become part of the case file. Judges sometimes issue protective orders that limit who sees the records or seal portions of the file, but if your medical history goes to whether you knew about an HPV diagnosis, expect the other side to get access.
Vaccination and Precautions
The HPV vaccine affects the legal picture in two directions. Gardasil 9 protects against nine HPV strains responsible for the vast majority of HPV-related cancers and genital warts, is approved for both men and women ages 9 through 45, and demonstrated roughly 97% efficacy against precancerous lesions and cancers caused by the five additional strains it covers beyond the original vaccine.7Merck Vaccines. Efficacy of GARDASIL 9 If you already have HPV, vaccination doesn’t change your disclosure obligations, but it does reduce transmission risk for the strains it covers. On the plaintiff side, a defendant might argue that failing to get vaccinated when it was available and recommended counts as a failure to mitigate harm. Condoms also reduce HPV transmission risk, though imperfectly, because HPV spreads through skin-to-skin contact in areas a condom doesn’t cover.8Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Primary Prevention Methods
No federal law requires individuals to disclose HPV to sexual partners, and no state has enacted a law specifically requiring HPV disclosure.1Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Duty to Warn for Health Care Settings But the legal question in a civil case is not whether a statute required you to speak up. It’s whether a reasonable person in your position would have, and whether your silence caused someone harm.