Former Rare Staff
Sofia Vergara scored a major victory in her legal battle with ex Nick Loeb over their frozen embryos on Friday when a Louisiana federal judge granted the actress’s motion to dismiss the case against her.
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The judge determined that the court had no jurisdiction over the case because the embryos were conceived in California, even calling them “citizens of California.” The judge noted that neither Vergara nor Loeb have any ties to the state of Louisiana and presumed Loeb filed the lawsuit their because of the state’s laws protecting the rights of unborn children.
A year after Vergara and Loeb broke up in 2014, Loeb filed a custody lawsuit against Vergara in the state of California. He claimed she had undergone in vitro fertilization to create embryos out of her eggs and his sperm and that two had been frozen in case the couple wanted to have babies in the future. Loeb asserted that Vergara now wants the embryos destroyed, but she has denied that claim, citing an agreement they sign which prohibited unilateral action to be taken in regard to the embryos.
Loeb later filed a right-to-live lawsuit in Louisiana, asking that the embryos be given to him so that he could give them a chance at life by implanting them in a surrogate. Calling them “Emma” and “Isabella” in the lawsuit, Loeb requested custody of the embryos and even created a trust fund in their names. He accused Vergara of abandoning and neglecting the embryos by “refusing to consent to their development or care.”
In February, Vergara filed papers in California requesting declaratory relief and a permanent injunction that would block Loeb from being able to do anything with the embryos without her written consent.
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