Dad learns daughter isn’t related to him — because wrong embryo was implanted, suit says
A Nevada man discovered his daughter isn’t related to him — or the egg donor he “painstakingly” chose with his wife nearly two decades ago — after she took a DNA test last year, according to a new lawsuit.
The man and his wife, who couldn’t conceive a child, wanted to have a baby and visited Nevada Fertility C.A.R.E.S for fertility services in or around 2004, a complaint says. The business operated from 2002 through 2012, according to the complaint filed Sept. 30 in Clark County.
The couple decided to go through in vitro fertilization, a process that can help couples struggling to have children on their own, and selected an egg donor, the complaint says.
The couple agreed that the man’s sperm and the egg donor’s egg would be used to create the embryo that was then implanted into his wife — the final step of IVF — leading to the birth of their daughter in October 2006, according to the complaint.
After his wife died in 2022, his daughter, who is now 18, took an Ancestry DNA test and received the results in October 2023, the complaint says.
The results revealed she isn’t the man’s biological child — and the wrong embryo was used during the IVF process, according to the complaint.
The fertility clinic implanted an embryo that was created for a different couple into the man’s wife, the complaint says.
Now the man and his daughter, who are from Las Vegas, are suing the doctor who owned the clinic, her former business, another doctor who worked at the clinic and several other parties.
Attorney Robert Murdock, who represents the father and daughter, told McClatchy News on Oct. 1 that “IVF is a wonderful help to aid couples with infertility. But, meticulous protocols must be followed or mistakes will happen.”
He said in an email that these types “of mistakes are simply unthinkable and unacceptable.”
The doctor who operated the clinic, who now works as an obstetrician gynecologist in New York, didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment Oct. 1. McClatchy News was unable to reach the other doctor named in the lawsuit for comment.
In 2006, the doctor who operated the clinic settled a medical malpractice claim for $30,000, according to Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners records, which shows her license is still active in the state.
She was accused of “negligence in the freezing and storing of embryos which resulted in unviable embryos and the patient having to undergo another IVF procedure,” the records say.
The lawsuit filed by the man and his daughter says the man “has no idea what happened to the embryo created with his sperm” at the clinic.
It’s possible it “was implanted into someone else” and that he has a biological child “somewhere out in the world,” according to the complaint.
Dr. James M. Wheeler, a board certified obstetrician and gynecologist, wrote in an expert statement filed with the complaint that the doctor who owned the clinic was responsible for the clinical work and the other was in charge of the lab work that resulted in the “negligent transfer” of the wrong embryo.
The lawsuit says that it’s possible hundreds of couples who visited Nevada Fertility C.A.R.E.S for fertility services had wrong embryos implanted during IVF.
Now, the man and his daughter must go through an adoption process to legally certify their relationship as parent and child, according to the complaint.
The embryo mix-up has deprived the man “of the opportunity to create life from his heritage as was promised and planned by Defendants,” the complaint says.
“My client had more tears than I’ve ever seen someone shed, because what he thought was his daughter — isn’t,” Murdock told KLAS-TV, which first reported on the lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks more than $45,000 in damages and demands a jury trial.
“We hope that discovery will help us to determine what happened in this case and why,” Murdock told McClatchy News.
This story was originally published October 1, 2024 at 5:16 PM with the headline "Dad learns daughter isn’t related to him — because wrong embryo was implanted, suit says."
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