Sofia Vergara’s former fiance filed court papers Tuesday against the reproductive center where the ex-couple had embryos created in anticipation of having a family, saying the facility did not provide information on what would happen to the embryos if they separated.
Nicholas Loeb’s still unofficial lawsuit alleges negligence and fraud on the part of ART Reproductive Center Inc. in Beverly Hills.
An ART representative could not be immediately reached for comment on the suit, which seeks unspecified damages.
Loeb says the couple began their relationship in 2010, became engaged in 2012 and started discussing plans to have a family. They agreed to create embryos at ART through in-vitro fertilization, according to his court papers.
After the first round of IVF, a surrogate mother was unable to produce a child with two embryos, so Loeb and Vergara consulted with ART about a second round of treatments in November 2013 that produced two more embryos, according to Loeb.
However, the ART form directive did not provide Loeb and Vergara with the chance to decide what would happen to the embryos other than if either one of them died, Loeb says.
Specifically, the documents did not explain what would happen if the couple separated or if storage fees went unpaid, a violation of the state Health & Safety Code, according to Loeb.
Vergara failed to pay the storage fees and Loeb ended up paying them, he says.
Loeb and Vergara also were not provided legal counsel or advised to speak to lawyers before signing the forms, according to Loeb.
In a separate legal action, Vergara sued Loeb in February 2016, seeking a court order declaring that any attempts by Loeb to bring the embryos to term is a breach of their original contract.
Loeb, 44, sued the 47-year-old former “Modern Family” star in Louisiana for control of the two human embryos they created in 2013 to try to have a child via surrogate.
Vergara, who has an adult son, has been married to actor Joe Manganiello since November 2015.