A Los Angeles fertility doctor with decades of experience helping couples conceive was sued Thursday for allegedly inseminating a woman in 1986 with the sperm of a man who was not her husband, according to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Dr. Hal Danzer — a current UCLA professor and co-founder of the Southern California Reproductive Center — ran the Los Angeles Fertility Institute in the 1980s when the “young, happy couple dreaming of building a family together” approached him, according to the suit. The couple, who filed the suit anonymously, had struggled to conceive naturally but the wife became pregnant through artificial insemination conducted by Danzer.
The couple had twin daughters that year.
“This was 1986. Across the decades since, [the plaintiffs] have relished their role as parents, working multiple jobs… to raise the girls with the best quality of life they could,” their lawyers with the Clarkson Law Firm, wrote in the lawsuit. The lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages.
But the family’s reality was shattered this year. After one of the couple’s twin daughters had a baby, DNA testing revealed that the baby and the twins were related only to the woman who had conceived with the help of Danzer — not to her husband who provided his sperm for his wife’s insemination.
“My clients are devastated,” said Tracey Cowan, partner at Clarkson Law Firm and a lawyer on the case. “It has been hard for my clients to enjoy the little moments in their little grandchild’s early life because they are reminded every time they look at their grandkid that their grandchild is not related to their grandfather.”
Neither Danzer nor UCLA immediately responded to a request for comment.
The DNA testing showed that the biological father of the twins was a man named Dennis Goldman, who had a history of medical issues with which the family said they are now coming to terms. Goldman died of cancer at 63 in 2014, according to the suit. Goldman was a sperm donor to Danzer’s clinic.
The twins also realized, during their research, that they have 16 half siblings related to Goldman — all of whom were connected to Danzer’s fertility clinic.
The family is suing Danzer for fraud as well as for medical battery and infliction of emotional distress.
Danzer currently works at the Southern California Reproductive Center while also serving on UCLA’s Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Fellowship Program. He is also an assistant professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine.
“As the grandson of a midwife and the son of a hospital administrator, Dr. Danzer’s family has a long history of nurturing women’s health and fertility,” his biography says on the Southern California Reproductive Center website. “As the spouse of a psychologist, he has a keen understanding of the importance of listening and being attuned to his patients’ emotional needs throughout their journey to becoming parents.”
