Months on, and the court in the French town of Grasse has delivered its verdict in the lawsuit, ordering the Cannes-based clinic to pay out €1.88 million. With the family initially bringing a €15 million case, the sum to be awarded is considerably lower than they had expected.
The shocking mix-up happened back in July 1994, when two mothers gave birth in the same clinic in Cannes, France. Both babies were placed in incubators close by each other, with a nurse then unwittingly mixing them up before handing them over to their mothers to go home.
Alarmingly, both mothers had expressed concern over their babies’ appearance, having noticed that their daughters looked different to how they had appeared when they were born. Their concern was dismissed however, and they unwittingly brought home each other’s daughters.
The truth only came to light in recent years, when the father of the one of the girls took a paternity test. Having been concerned that his daughter didn’t resemble him at all, his suspicions were proven correct when the test revealed that he was not the father.
The child’s mother then went on to take a DNA test herself, which proved that she was not the child’s biological parent either.
The girls have continued to live with their non-biological families since discovering the news, but brought the €15 million lawsuit against the doctors at the clinic after learning the truth.
