Twins separated at birth suing for millions
Spanish twins who were separated at birth through a hospital error and reunited as adult women through a fluke are suing for millions in damages, a lawyer said today.
The women finally met each other in 2001. The case has been working its way through the courts since 2004 and a court ruling on possible damages is expected soon, said Sebastian Socorro Perdomo, a lawyer for one of the twins.
He would not release the names of the women, who are 35.
Socorro Perdomo said that his client is seeking €3m from the government of the Canary Islands, where the error occurred in 1973 in a state-run hospital in the city of Las Palmas.
He said his client was taken out of her cot as her twin sister lay in one right next to her, mistakenly replaced by another baby girl, and ultimately raised by the family of that child.
The other two girls were brought up in the mistaken belief they were twin sisters. Both of those two, including the one who was not actually a twin, are suing - making three lawsuits in all.
"It does not take a lot of effort to put yourself in the position of any of these people in order to understand the damage that has been done," Socorro Perdomo said.
Of the three, he said, his client - who was taken away from her twin sister and real family - is the most devastated.
"Since this discovery, her world has turned a bit upside down," he said.
"The first right of any child is the right to their own personal and family identity," he said. "In this case, that right has been violated."
The error emerged a generation later, through a chance encounter at a clothing store in Las Palmas.
A friend of Socorro Perdomo's client worked in the shop. When a woman who was the spitting image of that client came in and failed to recognise the employee, the clerk was dumbfounded.
When the dead ringer came to the store a second time, the clerk began to put two and two together and arranged for the women to meet.
DNA tests proved they were identical twins, the lawyer said.
