US$8.75 million awarded to family whose daughters were fathered secretly by fertility doctor

A Colorado fertility doctor who used his own sperm to artificially inseminate multiple women has been ordered to pay US$8.75 million to a family whose two daughters he fathered. Dr. Paul B. Jones, 83, is believed to be the father of at least 17 children conceived by 12 women who saw him for artificial insemination between 1975 to 1997 at his clinic in western Colorado clinic in Grand Junction, according to a New York Times article. He faces two other lawsuits and had previously reached settlement agreements with five other families. This recent judgment was awarded to Cheryl Emmons, her husband and two of her daughters fathered without her consent by Dr. Jones, who surrendered his physician licence in 2019, when the lawsuits were launched. Canada saw a similar case play out in court last year, involving Dr. Norman Barr, an Ottawa fertility doctor who used either his sperm or another sperm unknown to his clients in the conception of at least 100 children. Read: Settlement approved in lawsuit against fertility doc alleged to have used wrong sperm Dr. Barr’s case spurred a class-action suit that won $13.375 million to be divided among 230 plaintiff. That’s roughly just $2.1 million more than what was awarded to the Emmons family. In a 2019 interview with a journalist in Denver, Dr. Jones had skirted the question of whether or not he was the father of the children named in the lawsuit. “I don’t deny it; I don’t admit it,” he told the reporter. He gave up his physician’s license in November 2019, days after the families filed the lawsuit, according to state records. Read: More Canadians opting for fertility treatment during pandemic: doctors, advocate Dr. Jones’ deceptions came to light after one of Cheryl Emmons’s daughters, Maia Emmons-Boring, took a DNA test from Ancestry.com. Shortly after she got a message from a women who told her they might be half-siblings. Emmons-Boring did some digging and confronted her parents, who told her she and her sister had been conceived by artificial insemination. Emmons-Boring then mapped out a family tree–which “ran into Dr. Jones.” She located five other half-siblings who were “all shocked and disgusted” by the news. Eight families eventually filed lawsuits against Dr. Jones and the clinic he owned. It’s expected that a significant portion of the judgment awarded to the Emmons family will come out of Dr. Jones’ personal funds, because the Emmonses filed more claims against him personally than they did against the clinic. Dr. Jones has not been criminally charged for his actions because during the period in question it was not a crime in Colorado for a doctor not to disclose the identity of a sperm donor. In 2020, after Dr. Jones’s actions were publicized, Colorado passed a law that made it a felony for a healthcare provider to “knowingly use gamettes” from a donor without a patient’s consent. At least 50 fertility doctors in the United States have been accused in recent years of donating sperm after commercial DNA testing became more widespread. Read: Ohio doctor found not guilty in 14 hospital patient deaths

US$8.75 million awarded to family whose daughters were fathered secretly by fertility doctor

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