A judge ruled on Friday that Sofia Vergara's ex-fiance could file a revised lawsuit seeking custody of the two frozen embryos he created with the actress.
- May 23, 2015
AceShowbiz - The bizarre frozen embryo battle between Sofia Vergara and his ex-fiance Nick Loeb is getting worse. Los Angeles Superior Court judge Lawrence Cho stated on Friday, May 22 that the businessman was allowed to file a revised lawsuit seeking custody of two frozen embryos he created with the "Modern Family" star.
Loeb filed the previous version of lawsuit in August last year but he didn't specifically ask the right to bring the embryos to term even if Vergara objected. The lawsuit only stated that the embryos couldn't be destroyed without any consent from both him and Vergara.
In the amended lawsuit, Loeb is said to seek an access to the frozen embryos so that he can implant them in a surrogate although Vergara disagrees. While in the prior lawsuit Loeb addressed him and Vergara as John and Jane Doe, in the new version, Loeb named the actress directly.
An attorney for Vergara, Fred Silberg, opposed to allowing Loeb to file a revised complaint, claiming that Loeb had failed to state a viable legal claim to the embryos. He argued during a hearing that Loeb and Vergara had signed a contract saying that nothing could happen to the embryos without any consent from both parties.
Silberg also accused Loeb, who previously wrote about the lawsuit in The New York Times op-ed, of using the lawsuit to gain popularity. "It is almost a sham pleading under the law," Silberberg said at a hearing. "Plaintiff is using this lawsuit to continue to attack [Vergara] in the press and continue to have his own visibility in the press."
He concluded that the battle had "nothing to do with the rights over one's own body, and everything to do with a parent's right to protect the life of his or her unborn child."
