Dad learns daughter isn’t biologically his after a sperm mix-up, Ohio lawsuit says

When a married couple sought a fertility doctor’s help in conceiving a biological child back in 1991, they thought the Ohio doctor had successfully inseminated the wife with her husband’s sperm.

About 30 years later, that couple gifted their child, Jessica Harvey Galloway, and her husband Ancestry.com DNA kits for Christmas 2020 as they were interested in seeking out relatives in Europe.

Her test revealed a “startling discovery” — Jessica was not biologically related to the father she grew up with, according to a lawsuit filed Feb. 2 in Summit County, Ohio.

“My parents got us Ancestry.com kits as Christmas gifts, and since then, our lives have never been the same – and never will be,” she said in a news release provided by the family’s legal team.

Jessica and her parents, Jeanine and John “Mike” Harvey, are suing Nicholas J. Spirtos and Summa Health System after they say the Summa Akron City Hospital doctor mixed up the man’s sperm with another client’s. Spirtos is still listed as a doctor in reproductive endocrinology and infertility with the health center.

Summa Health spokesperson Mike Bernstein said staff are aware of the Harvey family’s lawsuit.

“We take this allegation seriously and understand the impact this has on the family,” he told McClatchy News on Feb. 1. “At this point, we have not met with the family or conducted testing of our own. Given the very limited information that we have and the amount of time that has passed, it remains our hope that the attorneys representing the family will work with us to make that next step a priority.”

The lawsuit obtained by McClatchy News says the Harveys consented to using Mike Harvey’s genetic material in an intrauterine insemination, “but that is not what happened.”

“The only explanation for this devastating news is that Defendants used a stranger’s genetic material to inseminate her, resulting in Jessica’s birth,” the lawsuit says.

Using genealogy records, the family says they learned who Jessica’s biological father is and then contacted the man, listed under the pseudonym Mr. Barrett at his request for privacy. The lawsuit says Barrett confirmed that he and his wife were patients of Spirtos at the same time as the Harveys in 1991.

Barrett agreed to a paternity test, the lawsuit says, and its results confirmed he is Jessica’s biological father.

“As a husband and a father, it’s extremely difficult to watch your family in pain,” Mike Harvey, the man who raised Jessica, said in a news release. “And the source of the pain is something that I’ll never be able to change. Learning that your entire reality isn’t what you believed it to be is hard to explain. It’s like waking up in someone else’s life.”

Managing partner Ashlie Case Sletvold, with law firm Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise’s Cleveland office, said the family she is representing wants to understand how this “tragedy” occurred.

“Did Summa fail to properly clean its laboratory equipment?” she asked. “Was this the result of Summa’s mixing up patients’ sperm samples? The Harveys — and the public — deserve to know.”

The legal team says the family does not know what came of Mike Harvey’s genetic sample.

“Behind the closed doors of the laboratory, Mr. Harvey’s genetic material may have been combined with Mrs. Barrett’s eggs to create the embryo that was then transferred to Mrs. Barrett,” the lawsuit says. “Or his genetic material may have been used in another patient’s procedure, potentially resulting in the birth of a child by a third couple. Mr. Harvey’s genetic material may still be in the laboratory. Or it may have been otherwise disposed of.”

The Barretts did not have a pregnancy as a result of their embryo transfer, according to the lawsuit.

The Harvey family now seeks compensation in an amount to be determined at trial and wants the court to require the doctor or medical facility to provide the genetic material Mike Harvey gave for the insemination — or to “account for its whereabouts.”

“For us, and for countless unsuspecting families out there, it took just one Christmas gift — a home DNA test kit — to change our lives forever,” mother Jeanine Harvey said. “It revealed a trauma that I never could have imagined. It’s taken every ounce of my power to remain strong for myself and my family as we try to move forward.”

Peiffer Wolf says this is one of numerous cases where “fertility misconduct” has been discovered as DNA tests become more popular.

“This is why we often characterize the current state of regulation over the assisted reproductive technology industry as the ‘wild west,’” partner Adam Wolf said. “Meaningful oversight is absent; error reporting is essentially non-existent; and tragic cases of lost, destroyed, or otherwise improperly handled embryos are on the rise. After several decades and thousands of fertility misconduct cases, we are still in the ‘wild west’ era. How many more people will have to share their heartbreaking stories before our legislators take this problem seriously?”

Peiffer Wolf published a report titled “The Fertility Center Regulation Crisis in the U.S.” in 2019, calling on Congress to create stricter guidelines within fertility clinics.

This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 4:51 PM with the headline "Dad learns daughter isn’t biologically his after a sperm mix-up, Ohio lawsuit says."