French court awards $2.1M for babies switched at birth
Nurse’s assistant accidently gave families the wrong baby
PARIS— A court on Tuesday ordered a private clinic in the Riviera city of Cannes to pay out 400,000 ($450,000) each to two 20-year-old girls accidentally switched at birth and given to the wrong parents — part of a 1.88-million payment to members of the two families.
The clinic’s lawyer, Sophie Chas, said she wasn’t immediately certain whether an appeal would be lodged against Tuesday’s decision by the court in Grasse.
Chas said the court ordered payments by the Clinica Jourdan and an insurance company of 300,000 for each of the three parents involved in the case and 60,000 for three brothers and sisters.
“I am perfectly satisfied (with the ruling) because responsibility within the medical chain was acknowl- edged,” the lawyer for the victims, Gilbert Collard, said in a telephone interview. The families had sought a total of 12 million, but had little hope of obtaining that amount, he said.
A nurse’s assistant had accidentally given baby Manon Serrano, who was in an incubator, to another mother after her birth in July 1994, and given the infant next to her to Sophie Serrano.
Three years later, Manon’s hair grew curly and her skin olive-toned — unlike either parent. Her father separated from Sophie Serrano after village rumours spread about the young girl being “the postman’s daughter.”
In 2004, DNA tests showed that Manon was the daughter of neither of them. An investigation was launched and their biological child was located — some 30 kilometres away.
The other family involved in the case has chosen to remain anonymous.