Baby Vs. The Bar. M.J. Rodgers
“Stanley Binick, president of Bio-Sperm.”
“Mr. Binick, would you please explain to this court what Bio-Sperm does?”
“Bio-Sperm collects human sperm, stores it and makes it available for artificial insemination.”
“Is your business commonly called a sperm bank?”
“Yes.”
“A moment ago you said you were the president of this sperm bank, but aren’t you also the sole owner of Bio-Sperm?”
“Yes.”
“You have no silent partners, no investors? You are totally in control of this private company?”
“Yes.”
“What did you gross last year?”
“Your honor, I object. Irrelevant,” Sato interjected.
The judge turned to Marc. She was an older, gray-haired gal in her sixties. This was her last year before retiring from the bench. Marc had been up before her countless times. She was one of his favorite judges, because he knew he was one of her favorite lawyers. He sent her a small smile.
“Your Honor, this jury must be presented with a clear understanding of all aspects of Bio-Sperm, including its solvency. Only then can they fully appreciate the extent of the improprieties and damages done to my client, Louie Demerchant.”
“Objection overruled,” the judge said. “You may answer the question, Mr. Binick.”
He may, yes, but he was clearly hesitant to do so. He sank lower in his chair as his raspy voice got fainter and his nervous tongue shot out to wet his lips. “A little more than four million.”
“Four million?” Marc said, repeating it loudly, letting his voice rise in surprise; although, of course, he’d already known the answer. A smart attorney had better know the answer to every question he asked of a witness sitting in front of a jury.
“You made four million in one year?”
Binick’s nervousness over the emphasized point caused his eyes to squint as he rubbed his tiny scale of a nose. “Gross, of course. And I work hard for that money. My rules are very stringent for donors. I accept applications only from college graduates. I personally do the interviews to make sure we get good-looking men.”
“So your hard work is to pick out good-looking men?”
“Well, partly...yes.”
“How do you define good-looking?”
“Tall. Physically appealing. Certainly no short men or men with big noses or receding chins. Our clients definitely wouldn’t want to have such a man’s child.”
Marc smiled to himself as he caught the dark looks erupting on the faces of the jury, a group of the shortest men with the biggest noses and most receding chins he had been able to find. So far, this testimony was going exactly as planned.
Binick’s eyes darted to the jury’s expressions, too. Realizing his mistake too late, he sank farther into the witness chair. Marc planned for him to be so low in the witness stand by the time he got through with him that the bailiff would have to get a spatula to flip him out of it.
“Mr. Binick, what procedures do you employ in collecting and storing this sperm?”
“The prospective donor men fill out a comprehensive questionnaire, and then we give them a cup and send them to the cupping room with a Playboy magazine or a videotape and—”
Marc held up his hand to interrupt. “You don’t have to go into that much detail.”
Marc guffawed along with the members of this all-male jury, purposely reminding them that despite the formality of his custom-made suit, beneath it he was just one of the boys.
“Now, Mr. Binick, after the sperm is collected, what do you do with it?”
“The sperm is frozen in liquid nitrogen at approximately three hundred degrees below zero Fahrenheit. It can last for ten years that way.”
“Who receives this preserved sperm?”
“Most of our clients are women married to infertile men. We provide healthy, anonymous donor sperm from men who approximate their husband’s size and coloring in order that they may conceive a child who will resemble them both.”
“Is providing anonymous sperm for women the only service you perform at Bio-Sperm?”
“No. We also store sperm from specific men who don’t wish to start a family right away, but want their sperm to be safeguarded for later use.”
“Why would a man wish to safeguard his sperm—for later use—as you term it?”
“Any number of reasons. An example would be men whose current medical problems require a procedure like chemotherapy that could render them infertile. They are looking for insurance.”
“So you store their sperm in order to ‘insure’ that these men will have the ability to pass on their genes in the future should they so desire?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Binick, did a man by the name of David Demerchant come to you to avail himself of your sperm bank ‘insurance’ services?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“November and December, three years ago.”
“And what was his reason?”
“David Demerchant’s family carries a genetic predisposition to become sterile by the age of thirty. Both his grandfather, Louie Demerchant, and his father, Colin Demer- chant, had suffered this fate. David wanted his sperm saved in the event that he became infertile before he could have a family.”
“How old was David at the time he visited your sperm bank?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Were you aware that David was the only child of his father and the only grandchild of Louie Demerchant, the prominent industrialist?”
“Yes.”
“You knew that David was the last of the Demerchant line?”
“Yes.”
“You knew how important it was to safeguard his sperm?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know these things?”
“When Louie Demerchant called to make the appointment for his grandson, he explained the circumstances.”
“He mentioned them in passing?”
“No. He talked about them at length and in detail to be sure I understood the seriousness of the matter.”
“Did you understand the seriousness of the matter?”
“Of course. I said as much many times to Mr. Demerchant. Still, Louie Demerchant was adamant about making all the arrangements and paying the annual storage fee himself to be sure everything was seen to properly. That’s where all the confusion began, you see. If—”
“Mr. Binick, please just answer my questions without any added comments. The jury needs to hear what happened in an orderly manner. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Binick, do you know what happened to David Demerchant after he entrusted his sperm to your company?”
“David Demerchant was killed in a plane crash over the Pacific Ocean in June, two years and three months ago.”
Marc let a small space of time pass—like a solemn moment of mourning—before asking his next question.
“He died six months after he deposited his sperm with Bio-Sperm for safekeeping, isn’t