The Iowa Supreme Court released their decision for Miller v. State of Iowa — a case alleging a former University of Iowa OB-GYN chair non-consensually inseminated patients with his own sperm — Friday morning.
The Court ruled the case cannot go to trial, stating Iowa Code Section 714I dubbed the Fraud in Assisted Reproduction Act, or FARA, cannot be applied ex post facto, or in retrospect. The opinion was unanimous, with Justice Thomas Waterman delivered.
“FARA has no express retroactivity provision imposing liability for fertility fraud predating its enactment,” the opinion reads. “Without such a provision, statutes creating new substantive liabilities are presumed to operate only prospectively, not to conduct occurring before the law goes into effect.”
FARA was passed in 2022 and states medical practitioners or facilities cannot use human reproductive material “other than that to which the patient expressly consented in writing,” among other regulations.
The case in question, however, dates back to the 1950s.
In 2024, Bert Jay Miller and Nancy Duffner filed suit against the state of Iowa after allegedly discovering their biological father was Dr. John H. Randall — the UI former Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology chair who provided fertility treatment for Miller and Duffner’s parents in the 1950s.
Randall headed the UI OB-GYN department from April 1952 until he died in April 1959. Over that seven-year period, court documents state Randall provided Donna and Bert Junior Miller fertility treatment, resulting in the birth of three children in 1954, 1956, and 1958.
Due to the emergence of publicly available DNA testing introduced by Ancestry.com in 2012, members of the Miller family discovered an anomaly while searching their records on the popular genealogical website that can assist families with tracing their individual family trees.
Randall, it appeared, may have been much more than their mother’s fertility doctor.
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Ancestry.com uses DNA testing and historical records to provide a myriad of family tracing services for users, ranging from geographic origins to familial lineage.
By just spitting in a tube and paying a $99 fee, individuals are able to test their DNA against millions of collected samples.
“At no time during Donna Miller’s life did she indicate to her three children their biological father was anyone other than her husband, Bert Junior Miller,” documents read.
Two separate lawsuits involving Randall — Stoughton vs. the State of Iowa and Bright vs. the State of Iowa — have also been filed.
The facts of the Stoughton case are eerily similar to that of Bert Jay Miller and Duffner. According to court documents, Ronald Stoughton, born in 1943, and Rebecca Myers, born in 1948, were children of Marlys Stoughton. Documents state Randall assisted the family with fertility treatment, and the two children later learned via Ancestry.com that Randall was allegedly their biological father.
Randall also delivered Myers signed her birth certificate as the attending physician, court documents show.
Elizabeth Bright, born in 1958, also filed a case against the state after discovering through Ancestry.com that her parents’ artificial insemination procedure allegedly used Randall’s sperm, making Bright his biological daughter.
Following the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision, none of these cases are eligible to go to trial.
Karen Lorenzen, a lawyer with the firm Hayes Lorenzen Biderman Lawyers PLC, argued on behalf of the Millers in front of the Iowa Supreme Court in February. She said considering the context in which FARA was passed, the legislative intent — or reasoning behind why Iowa’s legislators wrote and passed a bill — would imply retroactivity.
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Lorenzen also pointed to three specific clauses in FARA that she argued suggested implicit retroactivity: no statutes of limitations, a clause in the law saying the action “may be commenced at any time,” and the allowance for victims and their children to pursue legal action.
In turn, Iowa’s Solicitor General Eric Wessan argued on behalf of the State of Iowa that past precedent outlined by the Iowa Supreme Court states that a specific reference to retroactivity in some way, shape, or form is necessary. Wessan cited Hedlund vs. the State of Iowa, which states Iowa courts must “presume that statutes operate only prospectively.”
In addressing Lorenzen’s statement that the Iowa legislature’s intention in enacting FARA was, in fact, to prosecute past victims of illicit insemination akin to other national and international cases, Wessan pointed to patient care norms during the time in which Randall was practicing.
Wessan stated laws regarding written consent and medical malpractice were put into place well after Randall had died in 1959. He argued requiring written consent for previous cases — regardless of Randall’s true intention in the Millers’ specific case — would not be just, considering professional norms and the somewhat recent implementation of medical regulations.
The Iowa Supreme Court ultimately sided with Wessan, stating without explicit reference to retroactivity, FARA cannot be applied to any case from before 2022, which would include cases involving Randall.