A couple claiming ABC described them as abandoning their disabled surrogate child Ukraine After the defamation case is dropped, the broadcaster’s legal fees must be paid.
Matthew Etnyre and his wife Irmgard Pagan on a 2019 foreign journalist episode titled “The Motherland” and an article titled “Damaged Babies and Broken Hearts: Ukraine’s Commercial Surrogacy Industry Left a Series of Disasters” The website article filed a lawsuit.
It is said that American citizens first cooperated with Biotexcom, a company that provides surrogacy services, around 2015, when Etnyre was 36 years old and his wife was 59 years old.
Their complaint stated that “because the matter indicted was made public, the applicant suffered hatred, ridicule and contempt, and continued to suffer pain and reputation damage.”
Judge Wendy Abraham ordered them to pay $100,000 within 28 days as a guarantee for ABC legal expenses in June.
The federal court proceedings will be shelved until the security deposit is paid.
Their lawyer told the judge on Tuesday that his client could not raise funds and would not continue the case, but requested that they have not been ordered to pay ABC’s fees so far.
But Judge Abraham agreed with the ABC’s view that there is no reason not to apply the usual rules, and the party who abandons the case should pay for the law of the other party.
She issued the security order on the grounds that they were “penniless”, lived outside the jurisdiction and had no assets in Australia, and admitted that if they lose the lawsuit, they are unlikely to pay any cost orders.
In the statement of claim, they stated that these publications conveyed a slanderous meaning that Etnier relentlessly abandoned a child before and after birth, he was his biological father, “because he did not like the appearance of the child.”
The similar claim of the pagans is related to “the child born to her by the surrogate mother”.
ABC’s defense included a claim of “the truth” and reference to the sworn statement made by the couple in Puerto Rico.
In early 2016, they were told that the surrogate mother gave birth to twins prematurely at about 25 weeks of pregnancy, and she conceived with an embryo created by Etner’s sperm.
The male twin has died, and the female twin Bridget Imgad Etnil-infidel has serious health complications and needs to be hospitalized for physical and mental disorders.
The ABC referred to other documents, including the couple’s instructions, to stop Bridget’s treatment to avoid her death.
Reference was made to medical opinions, which included saying that the infant was “completely physically and mentally disabled and had no chance of recovery.”
The ABC said that since learning Bridget was still alive, the couple had not visited her in Ukraine, had not organized her to be transferred to the United States, nor had she organized to take her from a children’s home for private care.
They did not provide her with financial support, nor did they give her any love, affection or attention.
They did work with Biotexcom for the second time and were told in 2017 that the agent had given birth to twin boys, and they now live with them in the United States.
Except for substantive facts, the information submitted by ABC in the publication is in the legitimate and legitimate public interest.
