Judge wants fertility clinic lawsuits merged to single case

CLEVELAND – A judge in Cleveland says dozens of lawsuits should be condensed into one case against a fertility clinic that had a storage tank malfunction that destroyed over 4,000 eggs and embryos.

So far, more than 40 lawsuits filed against the clinic run by University Hospitals in suburban Cleveland.

The judge’s ruling issued Monday says the lawsuits filed by more than 70 plaintiffs are mostly the same.

The clinic says the patients’ eggs and embryos were ruined after a storage tank’s temperature fluctuated in early March.

The hospital has apologized and says the storage tank was having trouble for weeks and that an alarm system had been turned off.

The supplier of the storage tank says its equipment didn’t malfunction and it believes human error was to blame.