Judge tosses suit claiming sperm donor didn't live up to billing
A judge in Fulton County, Georgia, has dismissed a product liability lawsuit alleging that a sperm donor’s background wasn’t as described.
Judge Robert McBurney ruled the lawsuit was actually a wrongful birth claim that is barred under Georgia law, according to the Daily Report (sub. req).
The plaintiffs, Canadians Angela Collins and Margaret Elizabeth Hanson, said they were led to believe the donor was a neuroscientist, but he had no college degree and a prior arrest for burglary. The suit also claimed the donor did not have the “impressive health history” that was promised.
Collins and Hanson have a child conceived as a result of the sperm donation. The suit named as defendants the sperm bank, Xytex Corp., and the donor, James Christian Aggeles.
Aggeles was arrested in 2005 for burglary but he successfully completed a first-offender program. The lawyer who represented Aggeles in the criminal case, Carlos Rodriguez told People magazine that his client was “a success story for being rehabilitated.”
Aggeles’ lawyer in the sperm donation suit, James Johnson, told the Daily Report he had warned the plaintiffs that he would seek sanctions for the suit, which was bound to fail under Georgia law. Johnson also said the couple’s allegations about mental health problems were conclusions apparently drawn from Facebook and other online posts.
