Fertility Patient OKs $460,000 UC Settlement

A fertility patient whose eggs were implanted in another woman who later bore a son has agreed to settle her lawsuit against the University of California for $460,000, one of the larger amounts in the UCI fertility clinic scandal.

UC has settled with two other former patients in recent months for $301,107 and $25,000, bringing the total number of settled cases in the scandal to about 75 and costing nearly $15 million. About 20 other cases have yet to be resolved.

The lawsuits stem from allegations that once-acclaimed fertility experts Drs. Ricardo Asch and Jose Balmaceda and partner Dr. Sergio Stone took eggs from women and implanted them in other women, or mishandled the genetic material.

The latest settlement, announced Thursday, goes to Renee Ballou, 40, who has learned through DNA testing that a son born by another woman is genetically Ballou’s.

In 1986, Ballou and her then-husband, Wesley Presson, went to the UCI-AMI Center for Reproductive Health in Garden Grove, where Asch and Balmaceda had a practice. The next year, the doctors performed a procedure that involved taking eggs from Ballou. Before the surgery, Ballou was asked if she would donate extra eggs to other women with fertility problems, and she specifically declined to do so, according to her lawyers, John West and Gloria Allred of Los Angeles.

A total of 16 eggs were taken, Allred said. Four were mixed with Presson’s sperm and returned to Ballou’s body, but she did not become pregnant. She was told that some of the remaining eggs were fertilized and had been placed in storage.

In 1995, Ballou learned that at least one of her eggs had been implanted in another woman, who gave birth to a son. The boy is now almost 10.

“It was heartbreaking to learn . . . that the child that I had hoped for, prayed for and suffered for was stolen from me and born to another woman,” Ballou said in a statement. “I am comforted, however, to have learned that he has been growing up in a family that loves him, has cared for him and provides a positive, supportive home for him.”

Citing privacy issues, Ballou would not say whether the genetic father is her ex-husband.

Ballou has been in telephone contact with the other woman and hopes one day to visit her biological son. She has spoken with the boy on the phone, though he was not told of the genetic relationship, Allred said.

“I expect to be a part of his life when his birth parents feel it is appropriate,” Ballou said. “These are not the years when you introduce something like this.”

Ballou also has a son, now about 21, from a previous relationship. Learning of the existence of the younger son renewed her yearning for another child, she said. She had a miscarriage in December but hopes to get pregnant again, she said.

In all of the settlement negotiations, lawyers for both sides have used a formula to determine the severity of damages by ranking the plaintiff’s grievance or injury. Women who never conceived a baby but whose eggs were unknowingly implanted in other patients who gave birth are offered the largest settlements. Seven settlements so far have been larger than $500,000.

The three doctors involved in the scandal, which generated international headlines, were charged with mail fraud and tax evasion. Asch and Balmaceda have fled the country, while Stone was found guilty of nine counts of mail fraud and acquitted of 14 other charges. He is awaiting sentencing.