A total of 40 lawsuits were filed Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of men who may have become infertile due to treatments and illnesses, a according to the Chicago Tribune.
Men involved in the lawsuit claim they lost the opportunity to become fathers when their sperm samples were destroyed after a Northwestern Memorial Hospital tank failed to freeze them properly.
The lawsuit that was filed targeted the hospital, the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation and the technicians assigned to operating the tank at the time of its failure, officials told the Chicago Tribune.
The attorney working on the case, Matthew Jenkins said the sperm was banked in the hospital was the one and only shot for most of the men to become fathers themselves.
The lawsuits were filed under the name "John Doe" to protect the identities and privacy of the men involved in the case,
Northwestern officials released a statement saying "we deeply regret that this equipment malfunction occurred."
The officials also said that the specimens in the tank that malfunctioned may still be viable for use in in vitro fertilization.
Jenkins expressed one of the highlights in the lawsuit saying that all of the eggs were stored in one tank when there were several tanks available in the hospital.
