Netflix was ordered to pay an Indiana lady $385,000 after a federal court docket dominated {that a} documentary about disgraced fertility physician Donald Cline uncovered her as one among his daughters.
The girl, Lori Kennard, sued the streaming big in 2022 for outing her as one among Cline’s “secret children” within the documentary, “Our Father,” with out her consent.
The movie, launched that very same yr, explored how Cline used his personal sperm to impregnate dozens of unsuspecting ladies, main him to secretly father 94 kids.
The sick physician’s twisted scheme was uncovered in 2015 when a number of of his now-adult kids took DNA assessments on 23andMe.
An eight-person Indianapolis jury dominated in favor of Kennard on Thursday.
Kennard accused Netflix and RealHouse, Blumhouse Productions’ documentary firm, of recklessness and negligence in failing to blur out her title regardless of the documentary’s producers assuring her she wouldn’t be recognized as one among Cline’s secret kids.
The grievance stated Kennard suffered “severe harm” to her fame as a result of her look within the documentary.
It additionally claimed it precipitated her misery, embarrassment, and emotional traumatization and that her id was shared on social media posts selling the discharge of “Our Father.”
In the meantime, the jury sided with Netflix towards Sarah Bowling, one other lady who sued below the identical declare.
The jury’s verdict signifies that Kennard had stored her connection a secret however that Bowling had not.
The third lady within the lawsuit’s claims had been dismissed earlier than trial.
“Our Father” examined the case of Cline, who used his personal sperm within the Seventies and ’80s to impregnate dozens of sufferers with out their data.
Cline instructed six adults who believed they had been his kids that he had donated his personal sperm about 50 occasions beginning within the Seventies, based on court docket paperwork.
He had instructed his sufferers they had been receiving sperm from medical or dental residents, or medical college students — and that no single donor’s sperm was used greater than thrice.
The disgraced fertility physician was then discovered to have lied to investigators from the Indiana Legal professional Normal’s Workplace in 2016 after claiming he by no means used his sperm to inseminate a affected person.
Cline pleaded responsible to 2 counts of obstruction of justice in 2017 for mendacity to investigators.
Nonetheless, he obtained no jail time after getting a suspended sentence.
Indiana lawmakers subsequently handed a fertility fraud statute.
Cline surrendered his medical license in 2018 and was barred from ever searching for reinstatement of his license by the Indiana Medical Licensing Board.
