Legal News

On Sperm Banks and the Law (Lots of Law)

By Ashby Jones

Someday law professors might make hay out of this decision, handed down last week, about a 13 year-old girl who was allowed to sue a sperm bank for failing to detect that a sperm donor had a genetic defect. The decision has it all: tort law, contract law, family law — with some instructive civil procedure lessons (Statute of Limitations! Choice of Law!) thrown in for good measure.

In his 23-page opinion in Donovan v. Idant Laboratories, Philadelphia federal district court Judge Thomas O’Neill cleared the way for a 13-year-old mentally retarded girl from Pennsylvania to bring tort and contract claims against a New York sperm bank. The theory: the sperm used to conceive her had a defect known as “Fragile X,” a mutation known to cause a syndrome of maladies that include mental retardation and behavioral disorders.

O’Neill, however, dismissed all claims brought by her mother, Donna Donovan, after finding that the statute of limitations had long expired because the test done over a decade ago showed that the sperm donor was the source of the Fragile X genetic defect in her daughter. Brittany Donovan’s claims, however, are still viable, O’Neill found, because the Pennsylvania Minors Tolling Statute provides that the clock does not begin to run until two years after the minor reaches the age of 18.

But the plaintiffs’ lawyer won the much more significant legal battle over which state’s laws should apply — Pennsylvania’s or New York’s.

For a case involving sperm, the differences between Pennsylvania and New York tort law are significant. Both states have enacted so-called “blood shield statutes” that prohibit products liability suits stemming from blood or blood products.

But while Pennsylvania’s blood shield statute includes human tissues other than blood, New York’s statute includes only blood and its derivatives.

O’Neill found that there was a “true conflict” between the laws of the two states because “semen is not a blood derivative,” and Brittany Donovan would therefore have a valid cause of action under New York law, but not under Pennsylvania law.

The plaintiffs’ had argued that New York law should apply because New York’s interest in regulating its corporations outweighed Pennsylvania’s interest in providing redress for wrongs committed against one of its citizens.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 09, 2009 (boomark / email).