The Donald Cline lawsuits fall into three tracks: medical malpractice claims brought by his biological children against him and his former Indianapolis practice, an invasion-of-privacy suit brought by some of those same children against Netflix over the documentary Our Father, and the criminal obstruction case the state of Indiana brought against Cline himself. As of 2025, three malpractice cases have settled for a combined $1.35 million, at least one more is proceeding after an appeals court revived it, and a federal jury has awarded $385,000 against Netflix.
What the Lawsuits Are About
Cline ran a fertility clinic at 2020 West 86th Street in Indianapolis from 1979 until his 2009 retirement. During the 1970s and 1980s he inseminated patients with his own sperm without telling them, and DNA testing has since linked him to at least 94 biological children.1Time. Our Father True Story Netflix The fraud surfaced in 2014 when one of those children, Jacoba Ballard, took a consumer DNA test and found a network of half-siblings all tracing back to Cline.2WRTV. 6 Questions With Star of Documentary on Fertility Doc Who Inseminated Patients With His Sperm Every civil case since has grown out of that discovery.
Malpractice Settlements With Cline’s Biological Children
Several of Cline’s biological children have sued him and his former practice, Indianapolis Infertility, Inc., under Indiana’s Medical Malpractice Act. Three of those cases had settled by early 2025 for a combined $1.35 million.3Fox59. Dr. Donald Cline Pays $1.35M in Donor Siblings Civil Case Settlements
Each settlement followed the same structure. Cline and his practice paid $100,000, the maximum a qualified healthcare provider owed under the Medical Malpractice Act for claims arising in the 1970s and 1980s. Indiana’s Patients Compensation Fund paid an additional $350,000. The $450,000 per case matched the $500,000 statutory malpractice cap that applied to incidents from that era. Attorney Kent Winingham noted that if the same conduct were sued over today, the malpractice cap would be $1.8 million per case.3Fox59. Dr. Donald Cline Pays $1.35M in Donor Siblings Civil Case Settlements
The Statute of Limitations Fight
Not every child who has sued has gotten to the merits. Indiana’s two-year statute of limitations for medical malpractice has been the central obstacle, because Cline’s conduct happened decades before his children discovered they were his.
In a case brought by a plaintiff identified as “Anonymous Child 1,” the suit was filed in July 2022, within 20 days of her receiving DNA results confirming Cline was her biological father. She said she first began to suspect the deception after seeing the trailer for the 2022 Netflix documentary Our Father. A trial court dismissed her claim in July 2024, ruling the two-year clock had started running in late 2019, when widespread news coverage of Cline’s fraud would have put her on notice.4Indiana Capital Chronicle. Indiana Court of Appeals Weighs Statute of Limitations in Fertility Doctor Deception Case
On May 15, 2025, the Indiana Court of Appeals reversed. Judge Elaine Brown, writing for a unanimous panel, held that a genuine factual dispute existed over when the plaintiff actually learned Cline had used his own sperm to inseminate her mother. “Mere suspicion that malpractice occurred was not sufficient to trigger the statutory time period,” the court wrote. A jury will now decide whether her claim was timely.5Indianapolis Business Journal. Court of Appeals Sends Case Involving Zionsville Fertility Doctor Back to Trial Court6Indiana Capital Chronicle. Indiana Court of Appeals Sends Fertility Doctor Deception Case Back to the Lower Courts
The Netflix Our Father Privacy Suit
A separate strand of litigation targets not Cline but the makers of the documentary that told his story. Three of Cline’s biological children sued Netflix, Netflix Worldwide Entertainment, and RealHouse Productions in Indiana state court in May and June 2022, alleging the film disclosed their identities without consent by showing their names on screen.7The Indiana Lawyer. Child of Zionsville Fertility Doctor Wins Case Against Netflix for Invasion of Privacy
The cases were removed to the Southern District of Indiana and consolidated before Judge Tanya Walton Pratt. One plaintiff’s claims were dismissed before trial. After a four-day trial, the jury returned a split verdict on December 5, 2024. Lori Kennard won $385,000 in compensatory damages for invasion of privacy through public disclosure of private facts. The jury sided with Netflix on the claim brought by Sarah Bowling, finding she had not kept her connection to Cline a secret.8Variety. Netflix Jury Verdict Secret Child Our Father Documentary9Hollywood Reporter. Netflix Gets Mixed Verdict Our Father Documentary
Judge Pratt had already narrowed the case in two important ways before it reached the jury. She barred the plaintiffs from pursuing punitive damages, finding Netflix and RealHouse had taken reasonable steps to vet the film and that the failure to blur the women’s names was an “honest mistake.” She also rejected Netflix’s First Amendment defense, ruling the women’s identities were not sufficiently newsworthy to override their privacy interests.8Variety. Netflix Jury Verdict Secret Child Our Father Documentary
Why Indiana’s Fertility Fraud Law Doesn’t Reach Cline
Indiana became the first state in the country to pass a fertility fraud statute when Governor Eric Holcomb signed Senate Enrolled Act 174 on May 5, 2019. The law took effect on July 1, 2019. It made deception involving human reproductive material during a medical procedure a Level 6 felony, created a civil cause of action allowing compensatory and punitive damages (or $10,000 in liquidated damages), and set a civil filing window of 10 years from the child’s eighteenth birthday or five years from the date evidence is uncovered through DNA testing, a recording, or a confession.10Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School. Fertility Fraud: Major Developments in Texas, Idaho, and Indiana
The statute is not retroactive. It cannot be used to prosecute Cline or to sue him under its more generous limitations period. His biological children pursuing civil claims for conduct in the 1970s and 1980s remain confined to medical malpractice theories, with the older, lower cap and the two-year discovery rule at the center of the ongoing statute-of-limitations litigation.4Indiana Capital Chronicle. Indiana Court of Appeals Weighs Statute of Limitations in Fertility Doctor Deception Case
The Criminal Case Against Cline
Cline was never criminally charged for the inseminations themselves. Prosecutors said the conduct did not fit Indiana’s rape or battery statutes at the time, which required proof of physical force or threat.11DCBA. Fertility Fraud12Progress Educational Trust. US Fertility Doctor Receives No Jail Time for Using His Own Sperm in Clinic13Indianapolis Monthly. The Immaculate Deception
On August 23, 2018, Cline’s attorney surrendered his already-expired medical license to the Indiana Medical Licensing Board, which then voted to bar him from ever reapplying in the state.14The Indiana Lawyer. Fertility Doctor Who Used Own Sperm Surrenders License15IndyStar. Indiana’s Medical Licensing Board Says Donald Cline May Not Reapply The perceived leniency of the criminal outcome was one of the forces that pushed Indiana toward passing its fertility fraud law the following year.