"Yet," the statement said, "the court holds us financially liable for costs that put our very survival in question. We simply do not have the financial resources to respond to these kinds of judgments."

An expert in AIDS litigation, Donald H. J. Hermann, director of the Health Law Institute at DePaul University in Chicago and co-author of "The Legal Aspects of AIDS," estimated that at least 200 other patients in the United States were given blood that contained H.I.V. in the early 1980's. And he said that the decision could inspire other people to sue blood centers in their own states.

The association suggested that it could not afford to pay such judgments and, at the same time, conduct voluntary inspections and accreditations at blood centers, hospital blood banks and transfusion services. It threatened to end those inspections in New Jersey, and possibly at thousands of other centers around the country. If the association carries out its threat, state and Federal governments would have to take over the inspection of blood centers and enforcement of safety standards.

Besides representing 2,400 community, regional and Red Cross blood centers and hospital-based blood banks and transfusion services, the association's membership includes nearly 9,000 doctors, nurses and technicians in the blood banking industry. Its members collect virtually all the nation's blood supply and dispense more than 80 percent of the blood for transfusions.

Eric R. Slayton, an association spokesman, said an appeal to the United States Supreme Court was unlikely because Mr. Snyder's lawsuit did not raise constitutional issues but dealt solely with New Jersey's personal injury law.