Three families in Ontario filed a lawsuit against a US sperm bank and its Ontario distributing company after the companies sold them used sperms and fabricated a donor's mental illness records. The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday and is seeking over $12 million in damages.
Plaintiffs from Port Hope, Ottawa and Haileybury, north of North Bay, sued Georgia-based Xytex Corp. and Aurora-based Outreach Health Services, alleging the companies provide them a sperm from a donor with mental illness history, the Toronto Star reported. The families discovered the donor was a convicted felon with multiple mental illness diagnoses, including schizophrenia.
"If proven, this takes this case from shocking to truly outrageous," James Fireman, the representing lawyer for the families said. Ted Lavender, the attorney representing Xytex said on Wednesday, he has not yet reviewed the lawsuits and can't further make comments regarding it.
According to the families, the donor was nothing like the man on Xytex Corp and Outreach Health in Canada informed them. They were expecting that the sperm donor had an IQ of 160, an internationally known drummer and pursuing a "PhD in neuroscience engineering," the Guardian cited. The donor's sperm is also alleged to have been used to create at least 36 children in Canada, the United States and Britain.
The families are seeking C$15.4m ($12m) in damages, in which they have one child created from the donor's sperm, ages 8, 6 and 4, respectively. The allegations in the lawsuits include "wrongful birth, failure to investigate and fraud" and have not yet proven.
In Xytec's website, the company wrote, "Every year 75,000 American children are born as a result of donor insemination. Xytex provides physical, medical and social information about the donor to the patient, social traits, medical histories on the donor and his family," the Examiner quoted.
They also added that donors provide a personal essay and physical and social information about their family. Lavender, the lawyer for Xytex said the company looks forward to successfully defending itself from the lawsuits.
