Woman Sues Fertility Clinic That Destroyed All of Her Frozen Eggs

Larisa Lev-Ary, a 44-year-old woman who dreamed of having a large family, sued the fertility clinics that destroyed those dreams when they allegedly failed to properly care for her 16 frozen eggs, or oocytes.

Represented by Ali Frick and Alanna Kaufman, Ms. Lev-Ary is suing Manhattan Fertility Services LLC, Legacy IVF LLC, and Advanced Fertility, P.C., alleging that they exhibited gross negligence in destroying all 16 of her frozen oocytes. The case was filed in Manhattan federal court.

Ms. Lev-Ary underwent the painful and expensive process to retrieve and store oocytes in 2014, trusting Advanced Fertility P.C. to keep her eggs—and her dreams of future children—safe. In 2016, after Advanced Fertility handed over control of its laboratory to Legacy IVF/Manhattan Fertility Services, Ms. Lev-Ary went to visit the facility to ensure that the new owners were responsible. She was shocked to see a straw of her eggs sitting outside the freezer tank. But there was nothing she could do other than hope the ooctyes were safe.

In 2021, however, after taking her eggs to a leading fertility clinic in New Jersey for fertilization, RMANJ, she learned that all sixteen were destroyed. Dr. Kathleen Hong, the associate laboratory director at RMANJ, confirmed how “extremely unusual” this situation is:

I have never heard of a cohort of this many frozen eggs revealing themselves to be degenerated during the warming process. In the thousands of eggs RMANJ has thawed at its facilities, I have never heard of a similar occurrence, in which all transported eggs for a patient were degenerated.

RMANJ also found that two of Ms. Lev-Ary’s oocytes were missing labels, making it impossible to be sure they belonged to her. Ms. Lev-Ary has since discovered that the clinic lacked the proper New York license to retrieve and store ooctyes.

Ms. Lev-Ary was shocked by the apparent carelessness of the fertility facilities she entrusted her eggs to. Since learning that her eggs were destroyed, Ms. Lev-Ary has undergone multiple attempts to retrieve more oocytes and create embryos, but they have all proved fruitless.

You can read the complaint here.