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Noting that affairs of the heart “do not always run smoothly,” a Nova Scotia judge has ruled in favour of a woman who sued an ex-boyfriend in small-claims court for giving her a case of herpes.

The boyfriend had insisted they have sex without condoms, but neglected to mention he had been diagnosed with the sexually transmitted infection (STI) a few years earlier, adjudicator Augustus Richardson said.

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For her trouble, the woman identified only as A.B. in Mr. Richardson’s nine-page decision, was awarded $218, the maximum Mr. Richardson said he could allow under the province’s small-claims system.

Others have sued ex-lovers for failing to disclose they had HIV — still occasionally fatal — before engaging in unprotected sex, but the Halifax claim is a rare civil action over a non-lethal STI — and an unorthodox use of the small-claims system.

The single mother also sued, unsuccessfully, for $700 in debts she said her former paramour owed her.