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Netflix was ordered to pay an Indiana woman $385,000 after a federal court ruled that a documentary about disgraced fertility doctor Donald Cline exposed her as one of his daughters.
The woman, Lori Kennard, sued the streaming giant in 2022 for outing her as one of Cline’s “secret children” in the documentary, “Our Father” without her consent.
The film, released that same year, explored how Cline used his own sperm to impregnate dozens of unsuspecting women, leading him to secretly father 94 children.
The sick doctor’s twisted scheme was exposed in 2015 when several of his now-adult children took DNA tests on 23andMe.
An eight-person Indianapolis jury ruled in favor of Kennard on Thursday.
Kennard accused Netflix and RealHouse, Blumhouse Productions’ documentary company, of recklessness and negligence in failing to blur out her name despite the documentary’s producers assuring her she would not be identified as one of Cline’s secret children.
The complaint said Kennard suffered “severe harm” to her reputation due to her appearance in the documentary.
It also claimed it caused her distress, embarrassment, and emotional traumatization and that her identity was shared on social media posts promoting the release of “Our Father.”
Meanwhile, the jury sided with Netflix against Sarah Bowling, another woman who sued under the same claim.
The jury’s verdict indicates that Kennard had kept her connection a secret but that Bowling had not.
The third woman in the lawsuit claims were dismissed before trial.
“Our Father” examined the case of Cline, who used his own sperm in the 1970s and 80s to impregnate dozens of patients without their knowledge.
Cline told six adults who believed they were his children that he had donated his own sperm about 50 times starting in the 1970s, according to court documents.
He had told his patients they were receiving sperm from medical or dental residents, or medical students — and that no single donor’s sperm was used more than three times.
The disgraced fertility doctor was then found to have lied to investigators within the Indiana attorney general’s office in 2016 after claiming he never used his sperm to inseminate a patient.
Cline pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice in 2017 for lying to investigators.
However, he received no jail time after getting a suspended sentence.
Indiana lawmakers subsequently passed a fertility fraud statute.
Cline surrendered his medical license in 2018 and was barred from ever seeking reinstatement of his license by the Indiana Medical Licensing Board.
