Monday, December 09, 2024 - Top Streaming Service, Netflix has been ordered to pay an Indiana woman $385,000 after a federal court ruled that a documentary about disgraced fertility doctor Donald Cline exposed her as one of his daughters.
The woman, Lori Kennard, sued the streaming giant in
2022 for outing her as one of Cline’s “secret children” in the
documentary, “Our Father,” without her consent.
The film, released that same year explored how Cline
used his own sperm to impregnate dozens of unsuspecting women, leading him to
secretly fathering 94 children.
The sick doctor’s twisted scheme was exposed in 2015 when
several of his now-adult children took DNA tests.
An eight-person Indianapolis jury ruled in favour of
Kennard.
Kennard accused Netflix and RealHouse, Blumhouse
Productions’ documentary company, of recklessness and negligence in failing to
blur out her name despite the documentary’s producers assuring her she would
not be identified as one of Cline’s secret children.
The complaint said Kennard suffered “severe harm” to her
reputation due to her appearance in the documentary.
It also claimed it caused her distress, embarrassment, and
emotional traumatization and that her identity was shared on social media posts
promoting the release of “Our Father.”
Meanwhile, the jury sided with Netflix against Sarah
Bowling, another woman who sued under the same claim.
The jury’s verdict indicates that Kennard had kept her
connection a secret but that Bowling had not.
The third woman in the lawsuit’s claims were dismissed
before trial.
“Our Father” examined the case of Cline, who used his own
sperm in the 1970s and ’80s to impregnate dozens of patients without their
knowledge.
Cline told six adults who believed they were his children
that he had donated his own sperm about 50 times starting in the 1970s,
according to court documents.
He had told his patients they were receiving sperm from
medical or dental residents, or medical students — and that no single donor’s
sperm was used more than three times.
The disgraced fertility doctor was then found to
have lied to investigators from the Indiana Attorney General’s Office in
2016 after claiming he never used his sperm to inseminate a patient.
Cline pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice
in 2017 for lying to investigators.
However, he received no jail time after getting a
suspended sentence.
In 2018, Cline surrendered his medical license and was
barred from ever seeking reinstatement of his license by the Indiana Medical
Licensing Board.
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