It is one of the most bizarre cases in recent memory and it may well set a precedent if only because it's not likely to ever happen again. It involves a set of formerly conjoined twins and a complete stranger, all bound up in a set of circumstances almost beyond imagining.
It began when two of the plaintiffs were born. The unnamed females were joined at birth when they came into the world in
Las Palmas on the Canary Islands in 1973. They were separated by doctors in a successful operation that altered - and likely saved - both their lives.
The baby girls were then taken back to their rooms at the hospital and placed in a crib. At some point, the women say someone removed one of the infants from that crib for some reason and accidentally put another baby back in its place.
No one noticed the error and the pair grew up thinking they were sisters and non-identical twins. Meanwhile, the real separated sibling was placed into another layette and went home with a different family, who unknowingly raised her as their own.
"In 1973 there were two assistants and one supervisor for 60 babies," former maternity worker Densi Calero explains about the mix-up. "It's not impossible to imagine something like this could happen."
The real twins finally met in 2001 in a bizarre coincidence and slowly came to the horrifying realization of their origins. A friend who worked as a clerk in a clothing store greeted one of the pair and was stunned when she told her they'd never met. She was the spitting image of the woman's best friend and when they encountered each other again, the clerk figured out something was wrong.
She arranged a meeting for the duo and a DNA test proved their suspicions were correct. It was devastating news for both, along with the twin sister-who-wasn't, a second girl who was actually raised by complete strangers.
All are 35 years old now and all three want compensation for a mistake that can never really be rectified. "I wish I'd never found out about it," lawyer Socorro Perdomo quotes the twin taken home by different parents as saying.
"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," the advocate points out. "Since this discovery, her world has turned a bit upside down. The first right of any child is the right to their own personal and family identity. In this case, that right has been violated."
The complicated case was actually launched in 2004 and has been slowly wending its way through the legal system ever since. The parties are seeking Cdn.$4.6 million in damages and a court is expected to rule soon on whether they have a right to the money.