Good Step for All in Clinic Case

UC Irvine’s fertility clinic once was acclaimed for giving hope to couples that they could, with the right boost from modern medicine, have children. Now the University of California has approved payment of an additional $10 million to settle lawsuits filed by 50 couples who were patients at the clinic, which was closed in disgrace.

The settlement, announced last Friday by attorneys for the former patients, means more than half the 100 or so lawsuits filed against the school will not go to trial. It also brings to $14 million the total paid in settlements, according to lawyers for the couples. They sued the clinic after doctors there allegedly stole eggs and embryos being stored for scores of women and implanted them in other patients, some of whom gave birth.

Both sides benefit from the settlement. The school is better off not dragging the cases out and running up attorneys’ bills. The women and men who sued can get on with their lives without anxiety about an impending trial.

The wrongdoing also produced needed reform in law and medical oversight. California has made the theft of human eggs a felony. The state university system, initially slow to react to whistle-blower allegations of the wrongdoing, tightened its procedures to monitor all research involving humans. Those actions should help prevent scandals at fertility clinics at the university’s other campuses.

The university put the blame for clinic improprieties on three doctors, all of whom denied intentionally doing anything wrong. Some plaintiffs said they settled their lawsuits despite the fact that it meant they would not be able to learn through a trial just where blame should be fixed. That is an unfortunate result of confidential settlements.

The university has yet to confirm how much it paid to the latest group of plaintiffs or the criteria used for apportioning the settlement funds. As a public institution, it should provide those details and let citizens know how their money is being spent.