Sperm Bank Sued over Donor Mix-Up

A white Ohio woman has filed a federal lawsuit in Chicago alleging that an Illinois sperm bank committed consumer fraud after mistakenly providing her sperm from a black donor. She had requested a white donor.

Jennifer Cramblett on Friday filed the lawsuit against Midwest Sperm Bank LLC, which she blames for “an unplanned transracial parent-child relationship” that she says causes stress, requiring her to move to a “place that is more racially and culturally diverse.”

The lawsuit says her 3-year-old daughter, Payton, is a “beautiful, obviously mixed race, baby girl.” Making claims of willful and wanton misconduct, negligence, breach of contract and breach of warranty, Cramblett seeks at least $150,000, plus punitive damages and attorney fees. 

This is Cramblett’s second attempt to bring the lawsuit after an Illinois state court dismissed her first one in March, the lawsuit says. That lawsuit made headlines across the country as the tale of an assisted reproduction gone wrong turned into a commentary on race relations in rural America.

The first lawsuit in Illinois state court, which brought its claims under “wrongful birth” and "breach of warranty" under a state law covering blood and tissue donations, was dismissed in September, the Chicago Tribune reported. The judge allowed Cramblett to refile the lawsuit with a negligence claim.

Cramblett lived in Uniontown, Ohio, when she filed her first lawsuit. Uniontown had in 2014 a population of 3,469, just 10 of whom are black, the U.S. Census says. The original lawsuit included details that Cramblett had to drive to a black neighborhood to have her daughter’s hair cut, according to news reports.

The lawsuit filed in federal court says she now lives in Canton, Ohio, which the Census Bureau says has a population of more than 70,000 and is about 23 percent black.

The bank admitted, according to the lawsuit, that it sent Cramblett sperm from donor No. 330, who is black, instead of the white donor, No. 380, whose profile Cramblett selected. The bank alerted Cramblett to this five months into her pregnancy.

Cramblett claims that the bank misled her and failed to follow federal regulations by having lax record-keeping and labeling policies, hiring employees without the education to understand the regulations and failing to train those employees.

Cramblett’s attorney, Thomas Intili of Intili & Groves in Dayton, Ohio, said his client will need to help her daughter "navigate" the "racial prejudice [that] exists in this country."

“She’s going to need some transracial parenting skills that she wouldn’t have needed but for this error, which she’s now faced with and she accepts, frankly,” Intili said.

A representative of Midwest Sperm Bank declined to comment and did not know the name of a lawyer who represented the bank.