Fertility Bank Accused of Losing Embryos

A lesbian couple from New Jersey is seeking $3 million from a Murray Hill fertility bank they accuse of losing their frozen embryos.

The women, Cathy Berger and Adriana Pacheco of Hoboken, say in a lawsuit filed Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court that in 2003 they paid Repro Lab Inc. to store six embryos, created with eggs from Ms. Pacheco.

When Ms. Berger — who had been taking drugs to prepare her body for implantation — visited the storage facility last year to retrieve the embryos, clinic officials told her the "embryos were missing, could not be found, and had been lost," according to the court papers.

Their lawyer, Susan Dennehy, said the clinic searched again, but couldn't find the eggs. Ms. Dennehy said her clients told her not to comment beyond what was written in the legal papers in order to protect the privacy of their children.

As a result of loss, the women "have sustained the loss of irreplaceable property, the embryos, as well as suffered pain, injury, mental anguish … emotional distress," as well as "loss of chance," the papers say.

Ms. Berger had a miscarriage, according to an article in Mothering magazine.

The suit calls Repro Lab "negligent in the hiring and supervision of medical personnel who were careless" and "unskillful," adding that the couple trusted the clinic to safeguard their reproductive tissue.

A Repro Lab employee who answered the clinic's phone and identified herself only as Deborah, said she hasn't seen a copy of the lawsuit, which also seeks punitive damages.

"I have nothing to say," she said.

Repro Lab — which calls itself "the semen cryobanking center that cares" — made news when it refused to release a sperm sample it was storing to the parents of a 23-year-old cancer patient who paid the clinic before he died to store his semen.

The lab said the man said he wanted the sample destroyed upon his death. A state judge last year ordered the deposit destroyed.

In addition to embryo storage, Repro Lab offers lab testing, an anonymous donor program, and other reproductive services.