One of at least 87 children secretly fathered by an Indiana fertility doctor in the 1970s and ‘80s sued Netflix Inc for exposing her identity in the documentary ‘Our Father.’
The woman, suing under the pseudonym Jane Doe, claims that producers of the documentary contacted many of the children, offering to interview them and promising they wouldn’t be identified without their explicit consent. She says they broke that promise with her.
The disclosure damaged her reputation and traumatised her, she alleges in the lawsuit, filed June 1 in state court in Indiana and recently transferred to federal court.
She is seeking a court order directing Netflix to remove her name from the documentary and pay her unspecified damages.
“While the millions of viewers of Netflix cannot unsee what the defendants have done to plaintiff, by and through injunctive relief, perhaps plaintiff can protect her private and secret life” from those who haven’t yet seen the documentary, the woman’s lawyers wrote in the complaint.
Netflix didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the suit.
‘Our Father’ follows former Indianapolis-based doctor Donald Cline, who used his sperm to impregnate dozens of unsuspecting patients and pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice, according to the suit. The woman who sued Netflix said she took a DNA test in 2016 that confirmed she was one of Cline’s secret children.
The work was nominated by the Hollywood Critics Association for Best Streaming Documentary Television Movie.
