A federal judge says a woman suing a fertility doctor for allegedly lying and using his own sperm to impregnate her more than four decades ago can present evidence at her trial that the doctor is accused of doing the same to another woman.
Cheryl Rousseau sued Dr. John Boyd Coates III in federal court in Burlington in 2018.
The suit alleges that when she went to Coates for fertility treatment more than 40 years ago, he told her he had used the sperm of a medical student to impregnate her, but it later turned out he used his own genetic material.
In court filings, Coates has since admitted to using his own sperm. The case will now go to trial only to determine the punitive damages that should be awarded to Rousseau.
Last month, Shirley Brown filed a similar lawsuit in federal court in Burlington, accusing Coates of nearly the exact thing.
Lawyers for Rousseau had sought, and attorneys for Coates had objected to, the admission of that second case into the trial over Rousseau’s claim for damages.
Federal Judge William K. Sessions issued a ruling late last week siding with Rousseau. Sessions wrote that a reasonable jury could view Coates’ insemination of Brown as evidence that, with respect to Rousseau, his conduct was part of a plan.
“If presented with evidence that Dr. Coates committed nearly identical tortious conduct on at least two occasions,” the judge wrote, “a reasonable jury could further conclude that he was not merely trying to be helpful, but may instead have been acting with reprehensible intent, bad motive, or recklessness amounting to malice.”
The judge added, “Each is relevant to the consideration of punitive damages.”
Jerry O’Neill, Rousseau’s attorney, called the ruling an important decision in the case.
“It really permits the jury to see the whole scope of his conduct,” O’Neill said Tuesday.
Peter Joslin, an attorney for Coates, had contested allowing information about Brown into Rousseau’s trial.
“Plaintiffs would have one believe that the only explanation is that defendant is an evil person intent on spreading his genetic material as far and as wide as possible,” Joslin wrote in a motion seeking to prevent evidence related to the second case out of the trial for the first one.
But, he added, “the more plausible presumption would be that, in both cases, the defendant was simply motivated by a lack of other available genetic specimens at the time at which the procedures were performed.”
Joslin could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Rousseau had filed her lawsuit after her daughter used the online sites Ancestry.com and 23andme.com in 2018 in looking for information about her biological father. The results from those sites, according to the lawsuit, led back to Coates as the sperm donor, rather than a medical student, as Coates had originally told Rousseau and her husband.
New information leading to the second lawsuit was revealed as a result of a newspaper ad taken out by the daughter, now in her 40s, of Cheryl and Peter Rousseau.
“In Search of DNA Brothers and Sisters,” the ad from the Valley Reporter in Waitsfield read. The ad sought out people born through Coates’ offices between 1976 and 2009, which included locations in Berlin and Burlington.
Following that ad, Brown’s daughter, now 42, used DNA testing to find out about her biological father. In doing that research using the results of DNA testing, Brown’s daughter determined that Coates was her genetic father, the lawsuit said.
According to that filing, Brown’s procedure with Coates, who had been her fertility doctor, took place in May 1978 at Central Vermont Hospital, now called Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin.
Coates, the lawsuit stated, had told Brown that he would obtain the sperm from an unnamed medical student who resembled her husband.
“However,” the filing stated, “instead of inserting the genetic material pursuant to the representation, defendant Dr. Coates inserted his own genetic material into plaintiff Shirley Brown so as to impregnate her with his own genetic material and thereby be the biological father of her child.”
Had Brown known that would be the case, the lawsuit stated, she would not have proceeded with the treatment. Brown is suing Coates for medical negligence, failing to obtain informed consent, fraud, battery, negligent infliction of emotional distress and breach of contract.
Sessions, in his ruling that Cheryl Rousseau could use information about Brown’s experience in her case for damages against Coates, did provide a guideline.
“While the facts about [Brown] may factor into the jury’s consideration of a punitive damages award, the amount of any compensatory damages award must be limited to the plaintiffs’ experience, with punitive damages limited by Vermont law,” the judge wrote.
“If requested,” Sessions added, “the court will provide appropriate instructions to the jury on those issues.”
Compensatory damages are intended to compensate people for the loss sustained as a result of the defendant’s action. Punitive damages are intended to punish the person who committed the wrongful act and to serve as a deterrent to others who might act similarly.
Correction: A reference to Coates has been corrected.
