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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAn Indiana woman wants to sue the doctor who secretly used his own sperm to inseminate her mother, rather than the sperm provided by her father. But the question of when she was obligated to investigate her suspicions must first be decided by the Indiana Court of Appeals.
Justices heard the case during a Wednesday hearing, and will rule soon on whether the woman can continue to pursue a lawsuit, despite the state’s two-year statute of limitations.
The medical malpractice case centers on Dr. Donald Cline, the former Indianapolis fertility specialist who in 2017 admitted to using his own sperm to inseminate patients without their knowledge—or consent—during the 1970s and 1980s. DNA testing has since revealed that he deceptively fathered more than 90 children.
Attorneys and court documents all but name Cline in the latest legal proceedings.
The plaintiff—referred to as “Anonymous Child 1”—definitively learned of her biological connection to Cline in 2022. She preferred to keep her identity hidden, however, “because her father, as we sit here today, does not know that he is not her father,” said Kent Winningham, the anonymous woman’s lawyer.
An “Anonymous Healthcare Group” is listed as second defendant alongside Cline.
Cline’s counsel argued Wednesday that the woman had a reasonable obligation to investigate in 2019, after widespread news reports revealed the doctor had used his own sperm to inseminate multiple patients.
Winningham refuted, saying his client acted “promptly” after receiving DNA results from a 23andMe test kit three years later.
Arguments before the court
Cline treated the woman’s parents for fertility issues in 1985 “and was supposed to use sperm from Anonymous Child’s father to inseminate Anonymous Child’s mother,” according to court documents.
The plaintiff’s counsel said it wasn’t until 2019 that she saw news reports indicating Cline had been accused of using his own sperm to inseminate some of his patients, rather than using third-party donor sperm.
At that time, however, Cline had not yet been accused of using his own sperm to inseminate patients where the patient’s spouse—not a third party—provided sperm for insemination.
Winningham said his client initially “thought it was unfathomable” that Cline could be her biological father because her parents didn’t use donor sperm. Although other patients had made allegations against the doctor, “those patients had undergone different procedures than her mother,” he said.
“She always thought she looked like her dad, and had always been told she looked like her paternal aunt, as well, based on the fact that her parents did not use a sperm donor. The doctor told them, ‘I’m using your dad, your husband’s sperm,’” Winningham told Indiana Court of Appeals judges on Wednesday. “She reasonably thought that, ‘OK, there is a group of people that have been affected—people who used sperm donors. Thank God my parents did not use a sperm donor.’ … Then when she found new information, she acted immediately.”
It was in 2022 that the woman viewed a trailer for the 2022 Netflix documentary “Our Father,” which highlighted the ethical and legal issues surrounding his actions.
“As soon as she realized, ‘Oh my gosh, he actually did this to people who believed their husband’s sperm was used, as well,’ she got a DNA test right away, and she filed her case within 20 days of getting those results,” Winningham continued. “Those are the acts of someone that is using, I think, reasonable diligence and promptness.”
But a trial court disagreed, ruling in July 2024 that the woman’s two-year clock for legal remedy began on Dec. 31, 2019, at which point she was “aware that she was conceived through infertility treatment, that Anonymous Physician was her parents’ infertility doctor, and that Anonymous Physician had allegedly used his own sperm to (impregnate) patients.”
Judge Elaine Brown additionally questioned why the woman “didn’t do anything” to investigate her DNA earlier.
“There’s no law that supports that someone has the responsibility to watch the news, and based on allegations in the news of a different subset of people, that means I’ve got to go file a case,” Winningham argued. “And that’s not good for our judicial system, either—for people to file cases blindly, based on allegations others make against a physician their parents may have treated with.”
Cline’s attorney pushes back
Meg Christensen, one of Cline’s attorneys, held that the woman had “due diligence … to investigate her DNA in 2019,” because that’s when she learned “there was a possibility” that Cline could be her biological father.
“At that point, it’s undisputed that she knew that (Cline) had used his own sperm to inseminate multiple patients, deceiving those patients,” Christensen said.
Brown wondered if “a possibility of some medical malpractice” alone should require “reasonable diligence” to investigate if malpractice had, in fact, occurred.
“Suspicion alone is not enough to file, but it is enough to trigger the obligation to investigate,” Christensen replied. “(In case law) you see the trigger date being tied to the date that the plaintiff had enough information to suspect that there might have been malpractice.”
Even so, Brown further questioned if the woman “had enough information that required her to diligently look into it” in 2019.
“If the law is that we have to know exactly what the plaintiff knew about what was being said to third parties, then the statute of limitations really doesn’t have much in the way of teeth,” Christensen said in response.
“What we do know is that the plaintiff knew the physician treated her mother. The physician deceived multiple patients by using his own sperm and lying to them at the time and never disclosing it, and that he had continued to lie to members of the public and to other children conceived through this procedure,” the lawyer added. “With that knowledge, reasonable diligence requires her to do the thing that is only in her control to do. She is the only one who can do anything to further the investigation. Any reasonable person would proceed with some investigation.”
The judges additionally probed whether that burden should “be put on the plaintiff in a case such as this.”
Christensen pointed to the plaintiff’s earlier deposition, during which the woman discussed her early “denials” about Cline in a Facebook group for half-siblings fathered by the doctor.
“She says, ‘Well, how come we didn’t think it could apply to us? No one wants to think about something that horrific applying to you. That’s why I said it was outright denial. It couldn’t apply to us. It’s too unfathomable,’” Christensen quoted from the deposition. “She’s not saying, ‘I didn’t believe it applied to me.’ She’s saying, ‘I didn’t want it to, and I didn’t want to think about it because it was hard, and it is emotionally fraught.’ But that is not a reason to extend her timeline to investigate, unfortunately.”
Background on Cline
The woman’s legal team wants the Court of Appeals to return the matter to the lower court and allow the case to move forward. There’s no timeline for the appeals panel to issue a ruling.
Cline’s actions came to light in 2014, when another woman who was conceived via donor sperm discovered multiple half-siblings through at-home DNA testing. The discovery led to a broader investigation, and in 2017, Cline pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice for lying to investigators. He received a one-year suspended sentence.
At the time, Indiana law did not specifically prohibit fertility doctors from using their own sperm without patient consent.
The case prompted Indiana lawmakers to enact legislation in 2019 criminalizing fertility fraud, making it a Level 6 felony offense. The legislature also created a civil cause of action for fertility fraud, which enables the plaintiff to be awarded compensatory and punitive damages, or liquidated damages of $10,000.
The law is not retroactive, though—which is why Winningham said his client is seeking a malpractice case.
The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, not-for-profit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.
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