← Research · October 2026
Lawsuits, settlements, FDA letters: what's in your clinic's public file
One in four US IVF locations have a lawsuit, settlement or regulator action in public sources - and knowing which is which changes how you choose.
164 of 621 clinic locations (26.4%) have at least one public record on file. 137 unique records in total - lawsuits, settlements, FDA actions, data breaches and state-board or attorney-general actions, each with its source.
60 lawsuits and 8 class actions make up about half of all records. Add 24 settlements and court matters are two records in three. The rest are regulator actions: 18 FDA items, 5 data breaches, and 17 other state-board, AG or agency actions.
65 of the 137 records (47%) are allegations - claims in a filing, not proven facts. 45 records are confirmed outcomes (verified or regulator findings), 27 are settlements, and 5 lawsuits we track ended dismissed. We publish the label with every record, on every clinic page.
59% of dated records are from 2023 or later. Some of that is real growth in suits and regulator attention. Some is visibility: recent filings are far easier to find online than older ones. Read the rise as both.
Records by year, 2017-2026
77 of the 131 dated records are from 2023 on. Part growth, part visibility - recent filings are easier to find.
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What is in the file
Court matters - lawsuits, class actions, settlements, dismissals - are about two records in three.
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What "no record" means
455 of the 621 locations came back with no record in the sources we check. That is not a guarantee there are none. It means nothing surfaced in court dockets, FDA communications, state boards, AG actions or news archives we search. 42 more clinics had records that failed verification - wrong entity, duplicates, or a source we could not stand behind - and those were excluded rather than published.
Records follow the network
103 records attach to a single clinic location; 34 attach to a network or parent system - one embryology-lab lawsuit or data breach can land in the file of every location in the group. When a record belongs to the network, every affected location's page shows it, labeled as network-level.
How we got these numbers
- 621 US clinic locations, each checked against court dockets, FDA warning letters and communications, state medical board and attorney-general actions, CLIA actions, and news archives.
- Counts are deduplicated: the same case attached to several locations of a network counts once (137 unique records, 255 clinic attachments).
- Every record carries a label: allegation, settlement, verified, or finding. An allegation is a claim in a filing, not a proven fact. Dismissed suits are labeled dismissed.
- A record appears on a clinic's page only with its exact clinic identity, source, and date verified. What failed verification was excluded, not published.
- "No records found" means none in the sources we check - it is not a guarantee none exist.
- Aggregates only: no clinic names in this report. Per-clinic records, with sources, live on each clinic's page.
- This report is a snapshot of the October 2026 check; it does not update.
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Last updated: Oct 29, 2026