A couple seeking artificial insemination treatment from a Vermont gynecologist more than 40 years ago claim in a lawsuit that the doctor used his own semen to impregnate the woman without telling them.
The alleged four-decade-old ruse wasn’t revealed until two months ago, the couple’s attorney said, when that baby, now 41, used DNA testing to find out more about her biological father. The results allegedly showed that it was the doctor.
Cheryl and Peter Rousseau filed their lawsuit this month in federal court in Vermont against that now-retired gynecologist, Dr. John Boyd Coates III of Shelburne.
The lawsuit also names as a defendant Central Vermont Hospital, which is now called University of Vermont Health Network at Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin, where the baby was born on Dec. 27, 1977.
“They had no indication whatsoever up until then,” Jerry O’Neill, a Burlington attorney representing the couple, said Monday of his clients learning of the DNA test results in October.
“The Rousseaus had been led to believe that the person who was donating the genetic material was a medical student who Dr. Coates had cleared as a donor,” O’Neill said.
According to the lawsuit, “Had Plaintiffs known that Defendant Dr. Coates would use his own genetic material to insert into Plaintiff Cheryl Rousseau and to inseminate Plaintiff Cheryl Rousseau they would not have agreed to the Procedure.”
The filing added, “Defendant Dr. Coates’ choice to insert his own genetic material into Plaintiff Cheryl Rousseau and his choice to inseminate Plaintiff Cheryl Rousseau with his own genetic material was harmful, offensive and constituted a battery upon Plaintiff Cheryl Rousseau.”
O’Neill said the couple’s daughter, Barbara Gordon, used Ancestry.com and 23andme.com in October to look for information regarding her biological father.
“There was some health issue within her family and also just some curiosity as to, ‘What can I learn about my genetic father,’” O’Neill said of Gordon’s reasoning for pursuing DNA testing.
The attorney said Gordon also elicited the help of the University of California at Berkeley trained geneticist.
“If you have people who put their genetic information available out there online, you can then search using that to be able to narrow to whom you were genetically connected,” O’Neill said.
“The very clear conclusion from that,” he added, “was that it was very certain that Dr. Coates was her genetic father.”
The lawsuit was first reported by The Times Argus.
Coates could not be reached Monday for comment. Peter Joslin, a Montpelier attorney representing Coates, was out of the office Monday and could not be reached for comment.
The lawsuit termed Coates an “agent” of CVMC, alleging that medical center provided services to patients “in substantial part” through physicians contracted to use its facilities.
“Through this Arrangement, Defendant CVMC led patients to believe that the physicians who used its facilities to deliver patient care and services were employees or agents of Defendant CVMC,” the lawsuit stated.
The hospital, in a statement issued in response to allegations against the medical center, says it will seek to have them thrown out of court.
“The claim against CVMC has neither a factual nor legal basis, and we will move promptly to have the lawsuit dismissed,” the statement said.
“It’s important to know Dr. Coates was never an employee of Central Vermont Hospital and at all times he had his own practice,” the statement added. “Providing safe, high quality patient care is always our focus.”
The lawsuit includes counts of fraud, medical negligence, battery, failure to obtain informed consent, breach of contract, and inflicting of emotional distress. The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages of at least $75,000.
O’Neill said Gordon, who now works as an insurance broker, and the Rousseaus have referred all public comment about the case to him.
The Rousseaus, who had lived in central Vermont and now live in Florida, were married in 1974. Both had children from earlier marriages when they decided they wanted to have a child together, the lawsuit stated.
However, Peter Rousseau had undergone a vasectomy prior to meeting Cheryl Rousseau, according to the filing, and despite exploring whether it would be possible to reverse his vasectomy he learned that would not be medically possible.
Cheryl Rousseau then met with Coates and told him that she wanted to have a child with her husband and the doctor agreed to artificially inseminate her using “donor genetic material,” the lawsuit stated.
The lawsuit claims Coates “represented” to the Rousseaus that he would obtain that donor sperm from an “unnamed medical student who resembled Plaintiff Peter Rousseau, who met specific characteristics that Plaintiff Cheryl Rousseau required and who had been tested for purposes of being a donor of genetic material for use in donor insemination.”
Coates also required that Peter Rousseau retain an attorney to draw up a contract confirming that he would adopt the child, which Peter Rousseau did and delivered that contract to the doctor, the lawsuit stated.
In March 1977, according to the filing, Coates performed the procedure at Central Vermont Hospital.
“However, instead of inserting the genetic material pursuant to the Representation,” the lawsuit stated, “Defendant Dr. Coates inserted his own genetic material into Plaintiff Cheryl Rousseau so as to impregnate her with his own genetic material and thereby be the biological father of her child.”
Coates delivered a baby girl by cesarean section on Dec. 27, 1977, and continued to act as Cheryl Rousseau’s obstetrician and gynecologist for one year after the birth, the lawsuit stated.
The Rousseau family contacted Coates after receiving the DNA results, but received no response, O’Neill, the couple’s attorney, said Monday.
The lawsuit said Coates has denied using his own semen to impregnate Cheryl Rousseau.
According to David Herlihy, executive director of the Vermont Board of Medical Practice, Coates was first licensed in May 1974, and currently holds an active medical license.
It’s unclear if the allegations raised in the lawsuit will prompt any action or investigation from medical professionals.
“The Board cannot comment as to whether there is, or is not, a current investigation,” according to Herlihy. “Similarly, the Board cannot comment as to if in the past there were, or were not, other complaints or investigations.”
Coates was charged with unprofessional conduct by the board in July 1996, with the charges dismissed a few months later without any finding of wrongdoing.
Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault said Monday he is not aware of any ongoing criminal investigations.
“To my knowledge, there has not been a request to a law enforcement agency to initiate an investigation for criminal charges,” the county’s top prosecutor said.
“From a general standpoint, the statute of limitations for virtually all offenses has run for that time period,” he added. “For the purposes of pursuing criminal liability that would be a substantial impediment.”
Should such a case occur today with similar allegations, he said, “I can foresee circumstances where a non-consensual procedure or withholding of pertinent information regarding a medical procedure could result in some form of criminal liability.”
Asked if the alleged actions in the lawsuit constituted a crime, O’Neill, a former federal prosecutor said, “There is no crime in Vermont of which I am aware, other than if you wanted to take a broad interpretation of the fraud statutes … but that statute of limitation is long gone.”
O’Neill added he has been asked if there are other children out there who had been born as a result of the same scenario as Gordon’s.
“I don’t know if there are or not, this could be the only instant in which he did,” he said. “ But if there are, those people don’t know they are his children.”
The attorney then added, “There is no way for us to determine whether they are out there not.”
