Throughout the ongoing Nick Loeb-Sofia Vergara lawsuit and controversy, Sofia’s position has remained unchanged. Nick and Sofia made some embryos together and to use or destroy those embryos, it would take both Nick and Sofia’s authorization. That’s why Nick is suing Sofia: we wants sole custody of their embryos, which would violate the legal contract they had together. Well, the lawsuit is making its way through all the appropriate legal channels, and it looks like that’s going to keep happening: Loeb was given permission on Friday to move ahead with the lawsuit.
Nick Loeb refuses to back down and now, he and Sofia Vergara are heading back to court. Vergara’s ex was granted permission today to file an amended lawsuit allowing him to seek custody of the two female embryos that were created from his sperm and Vergara’s eggs while they were still in a relationship.
The revised complaint is the first time Loeb is seeking custody, and the paperwork includes a new claim that Vergara, 42, breached an oral agreement to create the embryos and bring them to term via a surrogate. “He does believe they are his daughters,” Loeb’s lawyer Christina Goodrich explained on Tuesday.
Today, Vergara’s lawyer Fred Silberberg told the Santa Monica, Calif., court that Goodrich took too long to file this argument. “[The] plaintiff is using this lawsuit to continue to attack [Vergara] in the press and continue to have his own visibility in the press,” he said.
As Vergara and Loeb signed a consent form that required they both have to agree before anything can be done with the embryos, Silberberg added, “There is no legal issue.”
Silberberg also made a statement in court that is the opposite of Loeb’s stance and sure to have pro-life advocates up in arms: “Embryos are not children.”
When the 39-year-old businessman originally sued Vergara in August 2014, it was to ensure that the actress did not destroy the embryos. Through her lawyers, the Colombian-born actress has explained that she doesn’t want to use or destroy them but simply leave them frozen.
This isn’t really a victory for Loeb, it just means that the lawsuit can move ahead and it will be decided further down the line by some other judge. It’s difficult to believe that Loeb would ever really “win” the right to nullify a legal, written contract, but I suspect that the victory for Loeb is merely dragging this out, getting more attention, and “punishing” his ex-fiancée in any way he can.
Speaking of punishment, People Magazine confirmed the previous reports that Loeb claims Sofia physically and emotionally abused him. People Mag got their hands on the latest court documents, in which Loeb claims Sofia “physically abused him on four separate occasions: she punched him in the face on two occasions, kicked him, and threw her phone at this head.” He also says Sofia “routinely bullied him… [called him] worthless and a loser.” For the love of God.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Good luck to him. I don’t particularly care for either of them, but those embryos are a part of him and he has a right to them.
They’re a part of her too – why should he get to decide what happens to them and she has no say?
But the same could be said for her too. Could she counter-sue and gain custody of the embryos?
They are also a part of her. What about her rights and the contract he signed?
Personally I would put greater value on the right of a human being not to be brought into this world solely for the purposes of pettiness and revenge.
Because that is EXACTLY why he’s doing this – emotional abuse of a woman who hurt his ego by dumping his coked-up cheating ass.
Well said, Tapioca! I totally agree.
Wisdom of Solomon: Let the embryos have a chance at life by decreeing they should be donated to an embryo adoption site. Problem solved.
Truth! Well said, Tapioca
This!
But you could also argue that they are a part of Sofia and that she also has a right to them, thus the legally-binding contract with necessitated both of their consent to destroy or use the embryos in the first place.
If he seriously felt so deeply for the rights of the embryo then he should not have signed the contract which stipulated their shared responsibility over them. The fact that he’s doing all this now even when the contract was legally-binding (and will most likely be upheld in court) seems suspect to me rather than born out of true concern and care for the embryos.
Exactly, Rachel. If he truly believed what he claims to, he would never had agreed to this in the first place. He wants control over HER, plain and simple.
Shelley I understand what you are saying.. and people never think of this when a woman gets pregnant and decides not to keep the child. The man doesn’t have a say in that choice she makes whether to continue the pregnancy or abort it. The child is a part of them both; but the ultimate decision is these situations is that of the woman.
This is an interesting situation to me. Being that the embryos are out of body so to speak. It creates the possibility of laws that could be far reaching. It also should make people think before creating life with someone. I think of Sherry Sheppard in a way too. There can be arguments for both sides in this situation.
It has been considered. It’s not given as much weight because men don’t get pregnant and undergo the medical complications of pregnancy. It’s the same reason that you can’t be forced to undergo treatment at a hospital for a procedure you don’t want. Your bodily autonomy is your own.
Men have the opportunity to discuss what will happen to a potential embryo before they ever have sex with their partner or generate in vitro embryos. If they choose not to communicate their position on the issue, that is not the fault of a woman. In a healthy, consensual relationship, yes, absolutely, a woman should alert her partner about a pregnancy and discuss it thoroughly before the choice to terminate occurs, but this is not that situation. This is a man who made a choice, signed a legal document, and then changed his mind because he wants to utilize them in a petty act of revenge against his partner.
tl;dr A man’s choice is not more valuable than a woman’s, particularly if her body is being used as the incubator.
That is because the man is not the one putting his life on the line. Check out everything that can kill you during pregnancy. If the man wants to have a say, let him carry it in his uterus and bring it to term. Oh wait…
When my husband and I have undergone IVF (with a donor egg but his sperm) we BOTH have to sign consent to proceed with transferring the embryo into me.
Even if this guy wins the battle to proceed, he will still need Sofia’s consent to implant the embryo into a surrogate as it’s her biological matter. Unlike my situation where the donor signed all right away when she donated her eggs.
Sorry, but that makes no sense. If someone is pregnant, they get to decide what happens to their own body. That’s not FEMINISM GONE CRAZY, that’s accepting that pregnancy is a huge thing, and nobody has the right to force anyone else into it. If there’s an embryo in vitro, as there is here, then the person who doesn’t want to be a parent gets to decide what happens. That’s a gender neutral situation, and would affect a woman who wanted to go ahead as much as the man. It’s no different to a couple I know, where the woman is desperate for a second child and he’s saying no. They are in agreement that he has to be on board, or it can’t happen, because he has the right to control his own fertility. We all do.
Sofia agreed to create embryos for herself to carry to term, when she wanted children. She didn’t agree for a spiteful, vengeful ex to create living meal tickets and weapons against her. Which is what he wants to do.
The one thing women have in this world is to get to decide what to do with their own bodies while pregnant.. why would you want to take that away from them? You don’t think men wield enough power in this world? How stupid can you be?
Congratulations, Shelley. You’ve quoted the logic lawyers use to get custody rights for rapists.
They are not viable unless implanted in a woman. He has no rights to the embryos without her consent.
He signed a legal agreement that both parties must consent to the use of both embryos. He’s a grown man who runs a business and I’m sure he knows to fully read and understand a contract before signing it. It’s his fault if he didn’t think about what would happen if they broke up. To me it just seems like he’s a spurned lover trying to drag his ex through the mud.
Nyhuh. Parents have no rights, just responsibilities. once a child is born. Prior to that, the person acting as living incubator has a say, and prior to that, both parents equal say.
He loses at every stage of that reasoning until the last, where it’s deadlocked, and by definition the person who doesn’t want to be parent has to succeed. Be that the man or the woman.
Has he met Kelly Rutherford? Seems they would be the perfect couple.
Ha!
Lol.
Ironic Court decisions went both there way yesterday.
Perfect match. Reading today that these two have received favorable rulings from the courts is making me stabby.
Back to GOT the thread for me.
Doesn’t he come from one of those upper-crusty families where dignity (or the appearance of seeming so) might be important? I wonder what his parents think of him…
His mother killed herself after shooting his step father dead. The story is sad, awful and I used to feel for him.
I sort of feel that the obsessive behaviour reportedly shown by the mother may be rearing it’s head in Nick.
Ugh the level of creepy if he wins and uses the embryos…..
He is the poster child of the misogynistic MRA movement.
He’s so gross. He pings my creep-dar when I look at him. And for more reasons than this lawsuit. He’s unfortunate looking too, if I may add.
So he wants the children of a woman he physically and mentally abused him.
Pathetic. LET IT GO NICK! IT’S OVER! MOVE ON!
Also, no chance in hell he gets the contract over turned.
I don’t condone violence, but I can definitely see why someone would punch this guy in the face.
lol. so true.
I know, right? And if she ever did call him a loser – well, that’s just telling the truth imo.
My next door neighbor is a horrible, vile person. He used to physicall and verbally assault his ex wife (and now does it to his current wife, child, and dogs). One time she attempted to fight back and he called the cops and claimed she beat him. I wonder if that’s also what Nick did.
That was my thought, too.
Brenda if he is physically hurting his child please call 1-800-4-A-child and make an abuse report. It is anonymous.
@JESMARI I don’t have any proof that he is. Wish I did or I would call in a heartbeat.
Brenda, if you make the report then it’s on file if she leaves, and says he’s doing this, and he denies it. It will support her case, should she begin one. It is always, always worth reporting on that basis alone.
The problem with this “oral agreement” he is claiming existed it is hard to prove OR disprove which may be why the judge felt it had to go to court. While he can’t prove it did happen, she cannot prove it didn’t so it has to go to court.
Here’s hoping that it’s just a formality and it gets thrown out. Why would any judge bring children into this situation?
I genuinely don’t believe he is doing this for the right reasons.
An oral agreement can’t override a written agreement, as far as I know. I don’t understand why the judge didn’t throw this out unless there is some ambiguity in the wording of the agreement. It makes no sense to me.
If there’s a legally binding contract in place, it can only be altered via a written amendment. There’s no such thing as a “oral agreement” when there is a written contract. How’s he going to prove such a thing? By secretly recording her? Oh, wait, California is a two-party consent state so any such recording would not be allowed as evidence and he could face jail time. And I’m sure that the clinic has the most comprehensive, no loop-hole contract any lawyer could possibly devise to prevent this very situation from arising.
Assuming the case is not dismissed, the presumption is that a suit should go to trial unless one party can demonstrate to the judge that there are no material factual issues remaining to be tried, in which case the court can enter a summary judgment. The judge’s opinion is probably that the alleged oral agreement is sufficiently material that it should be dealt with at trial. That doesn’t mean that the judge thinks that the oral agreement would be enough to supersede the written agreement, just that it is important enough to warrant allowing the complaint to move forward.
Yes Other Katherine has put what I was trying to say into words. It’s possible the judge knows this will get thrown out but knew that he had to at least let it go to trial which seems crazy but I don’t understand the complexities of the legal system.
According to Wikipedia (yeah I know, not the best source) the issue is that the written contract was imperfect: it didn’t specify what happens to the embryos should the couple split up, and that is – so says Wiki in this article – mandatory under California law.
So I guess Loeb is trying to play this card.
Still a disgusting human being, this guy.
I think this is a convenient political issue for Loeb. He is using it to get pro-lifers on his side. I don’t believe he really cares about having the embryos.
+1 and it doesn’t say anything nice about any anti-choice people who would be swayed by these legal shenanigans.
Having been through IVF, I know a thing or two about embryos. Does he not understand that an embryo is not a sure thing? Just because you have an embryo doesn’t mean it will develop into a clinical pregnancy. They can stop developing, particularly if there are any genetic defects. In IVF, NOTHING is a sure thing. Good looking embryos dont take for many reasons. So the fact that hes referring to them as his daughters is ludicrous. Will he have a funeral for them if they don’t develop into a clinical pregnancy? He is just so beyond.
From what I read, they did have other embryos that were placed in a surrogate but didn’t implant. Then they broke up.
I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about. He’s just spiteful.
Clever PR from his team, humanising the embryos to make him look like a good guy, and even better that he sees them as his ‘daughters’. Now let’s all give a collective Awwww. What a turd.
This is creepy to the nth degree. Medical science has gone places it shouldn’t, places that should only exist in Margaret Atwood novels. I don’t mean to offend anyone who’s used fertility treatments, but the politics of fertilization are still so oppressive in our society that it’s terrifying. What’s next? Will a judge rule that she’s required to have them implanted and carried to term? He can try going with a surrogate, but the odds of successful implantation are far greater in the egg donor, so will he sue for the right to her womb? If so, he might win. And then legal precedent will be set.
My babies are the best thing that ever happened to me. Don’t punish the thousands of happy families out there because this guy is a controlling asshole. He will ultimately lose.
I believe that the real problem here, in regard to where medical science has gone, is not that people who need the assistance should not get it. There are plenty of situations where everything has gone well for couples who want a child, it would be so unfair to people who have done nothing wrong, to deny them that remedy.
What really needs to be looked at is that medical science has far outpaced existing law, and that oversight needs to be rectified, and that will not happen in a courtroom. A judge’s responsibility is to interpret existing law, not make it. This case will go nowhere, other than to allow this man to further harass his ex until it is thrown out. I can’t imagine any judge will be willing to set this type of precedent.
ETA: Congratulations on your babies @Red32 🙂
Ew.
I know it’ll sound harsh to many but I have to agree with what a previous poster said. With a dude this creepy I’d pay someone to unplug whatever tank they’re kept in. THIS is why I believe in people honoring contracts if they don’t have real cause to break them. Court is not the place to play monopoly or call mulligan.
Everyone grow the hell up and learn to live life without trying to punish your ex through the legal system.
I’m so fascinated by this story, many different legal and moral aspects to it, of course I think he’s doing this to maintain some sort of control over her and that’s terrible, but I’m interested to see how it plays out.
I hope for her sake the contract stays and nothing will happen, and he won’t be able to drag this out for long and continue to torture her. I also hope he ends up getting some random one night stand pregnant, it would be the perfect karma for him since he’s using this situation to get conservative pro lifers on his side politically.
This guy disgusts me on every level. Trying to make himself out to be an abused man in the relationship and how he was thus we are to infer he only signed the agreement because he was an abused partner makes me sick. He’s scum.
Why don’t they each take an embryo then. Do with it whatever you want but this DB has to stop the public revengefest against her.
They signed two contracts. If she loses because some whacky political judge wants to prove a point…ugh.
So she is going to have to pay more legal fees to make sure the two agreements that were signed are legally upheld. Wow.
Ugh. He’s getting what he wants – continued impact on her life. If this was about children, he would have sought out other ways to have them. All he wants to do is hurt her, because she to dump him, move on, and be happy.
He gives off a very strong nutter’ vibe.
The only good thing to come out of this is that all future potential victims of his have fair warning that he is a total whack job and unless that’s what they’re into will know to run like hell when they see him approaching in all his lunacy.
Poor Sophia though, she must have been so relieved to be free of him and find real love with a sane, presumably nice man, then her crazy ex finds a way to drag her through the courts and media in association with his repulsive creepiness. Ugh….
Yeah, I really feel for her. So many wonderful things happening this past year–child graduating college, wonderful fiancé, amazing career with star on walk of fame, etc etc–and then this a****** with all his millions wants to start with this b.s. Wow, just wow. And remember what he said about her, that he wanted someone with more class, all these nasty things. Please let this be a lesson to us all: make sure you get your legal stuff in order, no matter what you do, be it pictures, embryos, whatever! Learn to love reading contracts and don’t be afraid to protect yourself no matter how much “love” is in the picture! I do and that has saved me on every level, even just with simple matters. Notice also how she said she had done this for him, wanted to give him babies…she is such a Cancerian, caring about her partner that way, almost too much so. I always get the feeling that she was a kind of surrogate mother to him, like he was a child and she the parent…now she is with someone amazing who loves and cares for her properly and he is acting like a spoiled child!
it bothers me to see all this $ and effort spent on embryos that will never be anything but embryos when there are so many children without parents in this country and others.