A California jury handed down a $14.975 million settlement on Thursday to the victims of a cryogenic storage tank malfunction at a fertility clinic. The settlement will go to a couple who lost an embryo and three women who lost eggs in the catastrophe.
According to the New York Post, $14 million awarded in the settlement accounts for the pain and suffering endured by the victims.
In 2018, about 3,500 frozen eggs and embryos were destroyed when the cryo tank failed at the Pacific Fertility Center in San Francisco. This is the first case against the company that made the tank, Chart Industries Inc. Hundreds of other people have filed suit over the California incident and a similar disaster on the same day in Ohio.
In Ohio, more than 4,000 eggs and embryos were lost. A lawyer for the company tried to blame the clinic, but the jury found the firm had failed to recall a faulty part before the failure.
“It’s really painful to be at a baby shower celebrating someone else’s family being built and knowing inside you’ll never get that,” Chloe Poynton, 39, said in court.
Poynton was one of the patients who lost eggs during the California cryo tank malfunction.
