By Sahil Saxena | Staff Writer

After a seven day trial in Houston, a jury finally decided the verdict of an unusual lawsuit between a man, his ex-girlfriend, and a sperm bank. It all started in 2002,  when Layne Hardin and his girlfriend, Katherine LeBlanc, decided to store his sperm in a fertility clinic. Having already conceived one child, the couple at that time agreed that the sperm would belong to LeBlanc if the two separated.

The couple broke up in 2006, and soon after, Hardin started dating another woman, Tobie Devall. According to Hardin, Devall was privately consulting a fertility doctor about whether or not she could get pregnant through insemination. In December of 2009, the two stopped dating, but the report from the doctor showed that Devall gave birth to a child using two vials of his sperm.

Hardin and LeBlanc sued Devall and the fertility clinic for sperm theft. The jury ruled that the clinic did not comply with the agreement between Hardin and LeBlanc and ordered the clinic to pay them $250,000 each. Devall also had to pay Hardin $125,000 and LeBlanc $250,000.

Hardin and LeBlanc may have suffered pain and anguish, but their decision of preserving Hardin’s sperm paid them with a lot of money that may change the rest of their lives.