The year-long fight between Sofia Vergara and her ex-fiancé Nick Loeb concerning the fate of two frozen embryos seemed all but over this week. Now a surprise and bizarre lawsuit filed in Louisiana on behalf of the embryos themselves by a mysterious cast of characters has breathed new life into the dispute and is poised to challenge a never-before-tested decades-old statute that gives embryos in one of the county’s most pro-life states, rights as people.
While it may seem like a longshot, legal experts reached by The Daily Beast say the plaintiffs have got a small, but very real chance at some kind of success.
The petition, filed in Jefferson County Parish on Wednesday afternoon and reviewed by The Daily Beast, lists three plaintiffs: two embryos named Isabella and Emma, and James Charbonnet, a New Orleans resident with no clear ties to Vergara, Loeb, or the product of the pair’s IVF efforts other than as the trustee of a fund meant to provide for their health, education, maintenance, and support.
The Louisiana lawsuit falls on the heels of a Monday request by Loeb to drop his 2015 California case which seeks to bring to term the embryos he and the “Modern Family” actress created during happier times in 2013. According to the new petition, Loeb is giving up because the California judge ordered, and he refused, to submit the names of former girlfriends who allegedly had abortions over the course of the relationships as part of discovery. The judge in that case was already set to rule on a motion for dismissal of the case filed by Vergara.
There is no request for financial award, because, the petition states, “there is no adequate amount of money that could remedy the loss of life of Emma and Isabella, two unique human beings.” Instead representatives for the embryos—which remain frozen in California—are asking the court order their immediate transfer to a uterus so that they can develop and be born. This can be accomplished, the suit argues, if a court will declare the California fertility contract signed by Loeb and Vergara void, since it didn’t include a provision concerning the fate of the embryos should the couple break up. Further they’re asking the court to terminate Vergara’s parental rights and reclassify her as an egg donor. Citing child neglect laws, the complaint claims “By leaving Emma and Isabella in a tank in a medical clinic for more than three years and refusing to consent to their development or care, Vegara has effectively abandoned and chronically neglected and Emma and Isabella.”
Sofia Vergara Embryo Case Could Open Floodgates - The Daily Beast
