A 44-year-old Oregon woman who says she was born after fertility workers mistakenly inseminated her mother decades ago with the wrong man’s sperm filed a $17 million lawsuit last week against Oregon Health & Science University and Providence Health & Services of Oregon.
The woman, identified in court filings by the initials A.P., is joined in the lawsuit by her biological mother, C.W., and her legal father, K.W. The couple is married and raised A.P. together. The trio allege that fertility workers in 1981 mixed up her intended father’s sperm with that of another man who’d given the fertility clinic his sperm because he was trying to have a baby with his wife.
Both couples were seeing the same OHSU fertility doctor, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit states that A.P. and her legal parents only realized that her legal father wasn’t her biological father within the past two years, after genetic testing revealed this was the case. It’s unclear why her DNA was tested, but consumer home DNA tests have proliferated in the past decade.
Further genetic testing showed that the other man was A.P.’s biological father, according to the lawsuit. It’s not clear if A.P. and her legal parents know the biological father or whether he’s a stranger. The suit, however, does say that OHSU has concealed or denied any mistake.
Representatives from OHSU and Providence declined to comment to The Oregonian/OregonLive about the lawsuit Wednesday, with OHSU citing “patient privacy laws” and the pending litigation. It’s unclear what role Providence played in the alleged error.
This isn’t the first time parents and a child have accused OHSU of such an error. In 2022, the legal parents of a now 7-year-old boy sued the institution for $30 million after they alleged another man’s sperm was mistakenly used to impregnate the mother. That man, who had submitted his sperm to be frozen and stored because a medical procedure was about to make him infertile, also sued OHSU for $10.4 million, according to his lawsuit.
Both cases appeared to have settled in 2023 before trial, though the terms and whether any money exchanged hands wasn’t listed in court records.
The Oregonian/OregonLive requested information on the settlements from OHSU, a quasi-public institution, under public records law Wednesday. A spokesperson said OHSU may not immediately be able to provide settlement documents.
In the case of the lawsuit filed last week by A.P. and her legal parents, the revelation has “deeply traumatized” the family, the suit says, with A.P. and her father now living with the knowledge that they’re not biologically connected.
A.P. also was “predisposed” to health issues passed on by “traits” from her biological father, accounting for an estimated $1 million in expenses, the lawsuit states. The lawsuit doesn’t say what health problems the woman has.
The woman’s mother also suffered from what the suit describes as “offensive sexual contact” and “severe invasion of her personhood” by conceiving and delivering a child “due to the wrongful use of another male’s semen specimen.”
The lawsuit says the woman will endure “doubt, frustration, confusion, and embarrassment for the remainder of her life” knowing she is “the product of nonconsensual birth.” All three members of her family need counseling, the suit says, with an estimated lifetime cost of $1 million.
The suit also seeks $15 million in damages for noneconomic pain and suffering by the family.
It’s unclear, however, if Oregon’s tort claim limits on public institutions, such as OHSU but not Providence, will have any effect on this case. The limits, which cap the amount people can collect from lawsuits, went into effect in 1989. They started at $500,000 for multiple claimants injured back then. By 2025, the limit grew to about $5 million for people injured due to the acts of public agencies.
Last week’s lawsuit was filed by attorneys David Eder, Joel Sturm, Ben Eder and Andrew Gust. The Oregonian/OregonLive asked them for more information about the case but didn’t hear back Wednesday.
©2025 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
