A Florida woman has been awarded a sum of $5.25 million this week after her doctor was found guilty of using his own sperm to impregnate her 45 years ago.
The truth only occurred to the woman, Cheryl Rousseau, and her husband when their daughter, who is now in her 40s and was conceived via artificial insemination, took a DNA test and found that Dr. John Boyd Coates III was her father.
Dr. Coates who is now 80 years old and no longer working must vomit $250,000 in compensation damages and $5 million in punitive costs, according to the Vermont jury’s verdict.
Cheryl and her husband, Peter Rousseau, who are now living in the State of Florida, sought a donor because Peter was diagnosed with an irreversible vasectomy at the time. The couple, who thought they were getting a medical student as a donor, paid Dr. Coates to handle their artificial insemination procedure.
The couple’s lawyer, Celeste Laramie, made a statement on Wednesday in which he said that the jury’s verdict was justified.
“The jury through its punitive damages verdict sent a message to any physicians who might think about lying to their patients or using their own semen to inseminate their patients,” she said. “Such behavior will have serious consequences.”
At first, Coates reportedly denied paternity but later accepted. In addition, a Colorado woman is currently accusing him of wrongfully inseminating her instead of an approved donor. The latter lawsuit is currently pending.
In her lawsuit, the Colorado woman, Shirley Brown, claimed that Coates lied to her that her donor was also an anonymous medical student during her procedure in 1978. Like Cheryl, Shirley found that Coates was her daughter’s father after the daughter took a DNA test.
We were surprised and disappointed with the verdict,” defense attorney Peter Joslin said.
