Tim Tai

In 2020, Victoria Hill took an at-home DNA test to learn about a health issue for which neither of her parents had shown symptoms. She discovered that she was conceived through fertility treatment with a sperm donor.

Then she learned that she had many half-siblings, including her high-school boyfriend, whose mothers had been inseminated by the same donor — their doctor, then-School of Medicine professor Burton Caldwell. Now, Victoria Hill’s mother, Maralee Hill, is one of four women suing Caldwell. 

The Donor Sibling Registry — a non-profit U.S. organization serving donor offspring, sperm donors and egg donors — recorded that Caldwell fathered at least 23 children.

“I view this as a form of sexual assault,” Victoria Hill testified to the Connecticut General Assembly in March 2024, describing the fertility fraud that resulted in her birth.

Maralee Hill and Nancy Huber, another patient, also named the School of Medicine, Yale New Haven Health System and the Yale New Haven Hospital as co-defendants in their joint lawsuit. 

Although Yale’s attorney argued that the insemination happened at Caldwell’s private practice, the court recently granted plaintiffs access to the University files to clarify the relationship between Caldwell’s relationship with Yale at the time and any responsibility Yale may have for the doctor’s conduct. 

Caldwell is no longer affiliated with the School of Medicine or Yale New Haven Hospital. A University spokesperson declined to answer questions about when and why Caldwell left Yale and when the University learned of his misconduct. 

The attorney representing Caldwell also did not respond to requests for comment.

In a separate lawsuit, Doreen Pierson and her daughter Janine accused Caldwell of negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault and battery, failure to obtain informed consent, fraud, fraudulent concealment and violating the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, which guards against deceptive or unjust company practices resulting in a “measurable loss of money or property.”

Doreen Pierson alleges that Caldwell artificially inseminated her in 1986, leading to Janine’s birth. In her complaint, she describes how she agreed to be inseminated with a “fresh, never frozen semen specimen” from a Yale medical intern on-site who was willing to be an anonymous sperm donor.

Through an at-home DNA test in July 2022, Janine discovered that Caldwell had used his own semen to inseminate her mother instead of the medical intern’s. When Janine confronted Caldwell, he admitted to using his own sperm to artificially inseminate “numerous patients,” including her mother, the complaint states. 

The Piersons’ suit also claims that Caldwell failed to provide information about his family history of genetic conditions, including diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

“At no time did Dr. Caldwell inform Doreen Pierson that the sperm being used to inseminate her came from a person with these serious health conditions,” the Piersons’ attorneys wrote.

In the complaint, the Piersons claimed compensatory damages of at least $15,000.

In a related suit, Maralee Hill and Nancy Huber also claim they consented to artificial insemination treatment after having difficulty conceiving a child with their respective husbands. Caldwell promised both women that they would be inseminated with sperm from an anonymous donor but instead used his own sperm, the women claim.

“I was told that all sperm donations were anonymous and there would be no information available regarding the donors,” Maralee Hill testified in March 2024. 

In addition to Caldwell, Hill and Huber are suing Yale, Yale New Haven Hospital and the Yale New Haven Health System. In March 2024, plaintiffs filed a discovery petition requesting information regarding the “extent of the relationship between Dr. Caldwell and Yale” and any responsibility Yale may have for Caldwell’s conduct, according to a legal memo on the motion.

Yale New Haven Health claimed in a statement that there was “no evidence of Yale New Haven Health’s involvement in the conduct alleged against Dr. Caldwell.” In April, an attorney for Yale New Haven Hospital, the School of Medicine and Yale New Haven Health Services Corporation filed a motion to strike the petition. 

At the court hearing in September, Yale attorney Brock Dubin argued before a Connecticut Superior Court judge that the petition was legally insufficient because the inseminations occurred at a residence not owned by Yale — and because Caldwell left Yale in the 1980s. The News was not able to independently verify when Caldwell left Yale.

“It was his own private practice,” Dubin argued. “What he did at that private practice he did unbeknownst to Yale. There’s no reason Yale would have any notion what he was doing at his private practice.”

On Jan. 3, the judge, Robin L. Wilson, wrote that Hill and Huber alleged “sufficient facts to demonstrate probable cause” that Caldwell was an “agent” of Yale or that Yale had “direct involvement in or knowledge of” the doctor’s conduct — given that Caldwell applied for grants and published papers as a Yale affiliate — and granted plaintiffs access to requested files. Hill and Huber can examine records from Caldwell and Yale from the limited period of 1974 and 1984 — a time frame that ends the year Huber was treated by Caldwell and two years before Hill’s insemination treatment.

Caldwell has declined to comment on stories about the suits on multiple occasions. A CNN report from 2024 described Caldwell as “frail” and “quite elderly.”

Caldwell is now 86 years old.