Woman handed $5m after doctor used his own sperm instead of donor's

MSN ^ | 3.31.2022 | Isabel Keane

[libh8er]

A Florida woman who accused a Vermont doctor of impregnating her with his own sperm instead of a donor’s in 1977 was awarded $5.25 million by a federal judge on Wednesday.

Cheryl Rousseau was awarded $250,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages in the case against Dr John Coates III, who inseminated her with his sperm without her consent.

Cheryl’s attorney, Celeste Laramie said that the jury awarded Cheryl the amount they had requested, and that the jurors found Coates’ behavior to be ‘wrongful and offensive.’

She said: ‘The jury through its punitive damages verdict sent a message to any physicians who might think about lying to their patients or using their own semen to inseminate their patients. Such behavior will have serious consequences.’

The couple wanted a child, but Peter had undergone a vasectomy that could not be reversed. They found a donor who was a medical student that resembled Peter and ‘met specific characteristics’ Cheryl required, the lawsuit said.

The sperm donation had gone off without a hitch, the couple had thought. Until in 2018 when their child, now an adult, received a DNA test and found out Coates was her biological father.

That same year Cheryl and her husband, Peter Rousseau, sued Coates, accusing him of using his own sperm during an artificial insemination procedure in March 1977 at a hospital in Berlin, Vermont.

Coates had testified under oath during his 2019 deposition that he was not the father, and had never used his own sperm in any insemination procedures.

But once the DNA confirmed he was the genetic father of Cheryl’s child, he admitted to having used his own sperm.

[nickcarraway]

Cecil Jacobson was the fertility doctor who got busted in the early 90s for using his DNA on his patients. In the 60s as a researcher he supposedly impregnated a male baboon, but he supposedly terminated the pregnancy.

On 3/14/1992, Saturday Night Live did a skit called My 75 Kids where John Goodman played Cecil Jacobson and Cris Farley played one of the children, but it's blocked on YouTube.

[Rebelbase]

Let this be a message to all men. Spread your seed sparingly.

[libh8er]

He wanted to donate it directly from his body to hers.

A distant second best option was indirectly.

[Jamestown1630]

Um, I hesitate to ask; but how did he ‘impregnate’ a male baboon?

[Angelino97]

I don’t know why a doctor would do this when an approved donor was already available.

Ego. A desire to pass on his genes; a very primal instinct.

[TexasGator]

“Was the money collected by woman or just awarded a judgement? “

Read the first sentence.

[Jamestown1630]

I his case, obviously a perverted instinct.

[poinq]

Not sure why this is a problem to the doctor. He must be in his 80s. He gave the money to the mother of his child. So it probably goes to his child in the end. He can’t care too much.

This has happened several times. For some reason this is common. I assume the women is Ok, the cuckold may be a bit miffed. But that medical student wasn’t really a medical student either. Sperm banks are scams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_Qihr-XVAw

[JayGalt]

Because if there were the woman had no right to have a child that was related to herself biologically?
Do you also believe in global warming &/or zero population growth?
Should your value judgment that finding a home for an orphaned child trumps this woman’s desire for a genetically related child have any impact on her life? Should it negate her desire to carry and birth a child of her own?

[enumerated]

I wonder if the doctor said “you’re going to feel a little prick” when he deposited the sperm.

[353FMG]

Doctor was horny beyond control?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Probably from an old case several decades back, in which a mormon doctor was doing that to his women patients.

The women began to wonder why their kids looked more like the doctor than the donor.

[Rastus]

he had supposedly implanted a fertilized egg from a female baboon into the male's abdominal cavity. He claimed that he had terminated the pregnancy after four months, but never published his results in scientific publications.

[Jamestown1630]

I wonder what he supposed would happen.

He sounds nuts.

[snippy_about_it]

I vaguely recall a story about a small town doctor who did this and many of the town’s children were his and hence unbeknownst to them related to each other. Now I have to go find it.

[joedish]

I wonder how many of these go a certain way if the marriage dissolves. The woman saying the live in father has no visitation rights because he is not the biological father. Seems fraught with danger for the “non” biological parent. Also imagine when the spawn learns they were so disappointing to their mother, that she sued because she wanted something different.

[Jamestown1630]

They probably go just as badly as many divorces go these days.

[OldWarBaby]

I remember the small town Quack story where folks started noticing the kids were all looking alike——scared the folks when they realized some of them, the kids, might want to marry each other.

[Trillian]

Just how often does this happen? There are so many stories..

[pfflier]

I did read it that is why I said what I did.

If a donor is supposed to be anonymous then the donor was until the DNA testing. That test was a choice, not an obligation.

If the Dr would have done insemination "the old fashioned way" that would be completely different.