Netflix is facing another ‘Baby Reindeer’-style lawsuit, but this one might be worse

Three women featured in the 2022 Netflix documentary Our Father, about Indiana fertility doctor Donald Cline, who allegedly fathered as many as 94 children with patients using his sperm without his patients’ consent, sued the streaming platform. After a two-year delay, a judge has now ruled two of the women’s cases can proceed.

According to the Our Father lawsuit, Netflix revealed private information about the plaintiffs in the movie and its marketing without their consent, publically disclosing that Cline was their biological father, Variety reported. It’s the second recent high-profile lawsuit against Netflix related to the streamer’s true crime content.

In September, Fiona Harvey, confirmed to be the real-life inspiration for Martha Scott, sued Netflix for $170 million, alleging defamation in Baby Reindeer, Richard Gadd’s fictionalized autobiographical account of when Harvey allegedly stalked him.

Details of the case

The three women involved in the Our Father lawsuit, named Jane Does in the complaint, never appear in the documentary. However, their names are seen at several points in the movie and in the trailer without their consent. The eight people who discovered Cline was their biological father and were interviewed in the show signed waivers, as did three of Cline’s patients, who were also featured. According to the plaintiffs, Netflix assured them their identities would stay private.

According to Indianapolis news outlet Fox59, producers told them, “I know that some of you were more comfortable than others being involved… you will not be identified (unless you’ve already given us explicit permission to do so).” Moreover, several people who did not sign waivers had their names blurred out, but for some reason, the women’s names involved in the case were not.

The Netflix lawsuit was originally filed in 2022, but the streamer sought to dismiss it. About two years later, in early October, however, a judge ruled that the case could move forward with two of the three women, as the third spoke publicly about her involvement in the Cline scandal to a journalist unrelated to the Netflix production, and has also mentioned the Cline case on social media.

The privacy question

The third woman aside, Netflix says the women involved in the suit gave up their right to privacy when they took 23andMe DNA tests, the results through which all of Cline’s children learned he was their biological father. The streamer also says the women posted about their discovery in a closed Facebook group. However, the judge who has let two of the women’s cases proceed said the women had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the Facebook group, and had otherwise kept the DNA results private.

“The method by which Defendants intruded on plaintiffs’ privacy allowed hundreds of millions of people worldwide to see their names in the trailer and in the film,” the judge wrote in the decision. “This is not a case in which plaintiffs’ names were clearly needed to lend credibility or authenticity to the film’s story.”

The women involved in the case are seeking undisclosed financial compensation in the form of damages, alleging “severe harm,” including “reputational injury, distress, embarrassment, and emotional trauma.” As of 2022, Cline, who retired about thirteen years earlier, had paid $1.3 million in civil suits related to the fraud. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice, received a one-year suspended sentence, and paid a $500 fine.