DNA Gift Exposes North Dakota Newborn Switch Lawsuit

A North Dakota newborn switch lawsuit now asks a court to decide whether Unity Medical Center sent two babies home with the wrong families in 1988, a mistake the families say reshaped nearly four decades of their lives.

Kyle Bylin and Jeremy Morrison uncovered the alleged switch after Bylin received an at-home DNA test during a Christmas gift exchange, then matched with a biological aunt through a genealogy platform, according to Guardian World. Morrison later took his own DNA test. The results indicated the men had been raised by each other’s biological families.

North Dakota men sue hospital after DNA test points to newborn switch

The complaint names Unity Medical Center in Grafton, North Dakota, and says Bylin and Morrison were the only babies born at the hospital within hours of each other on the same day in January 1988. The families allege the newborns were switched before they left the hospital, without their parents knowing.

The lawsuit also names both men’s parents as plaintiffs. Local reporting cited in the source material says the complaint includes claims of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, deceit, and medical malpractice. The plaintiffs are seeking more than $50,000 in damages and have demanded a jury trial.

“The employees and/or agents of Unity Medical Center who switched the newborns and then failed to recognize or correct the error were acting within the scope of their employment and/or agency,” the complaint says, according to People.

Bylin, who was born Jeremy Morrison, says he still has the hospital bracelet that incorrectly identified him as Kyle Bylin. That detail could become a key factual exhibit if the case moves deeper into discovery.

Unity Medical Center has denied responsibility. The hospital does not dispute that the babies were switched at some point, according to the source material, but says there is no evidence its staff caused the switch.

At-home genealogy results turn a private family shock into a legal fight

The trigger was not a hospital audit, a birth record search, or a family confession. It was consumer DNA technology.

Bylin’s test linked him to a biological aunt on a genealogy platform. That discovery pushed Morrison to test as well. When the second result came back, the families had a legal and emotional problem that records alone apparently had not exposed for more than 36 years.

“That’s when my mind was just completely blown,” Bylin said. “We could have never imagined that it was an actual birth switch that occurred.”

The emotional stakes are not abstract. The families are now sorting through parenthood, sibling bonds, medical history, identity, and the basic question of who should have been present for a lifetime of milestones.

Evelyn Newton, who raised Bylin as her son, put the loss in plain terms.

“Kyle is still my son – that is never going to change,” Evelyn Newton told the Associated Press. “But I feel robbed of the life I should have had with my biological son. You can’t go back and replace 35 years. First steps, driving a car, getting married – how do you make up for that?”

The North Dakota newborn switch lawsuit also shows how consumer DNA tests can pull old institutional errors into court. XOOMAR usually tracks technology through markets and regulation, including the data-policy fight in DOJ Guts TikTok Federal Device Ban After ByteDance Deal and the commercialization push in $900B China Market Forces AI Live Shopping's U.S. Test. This case is different, but the common thread is personal data escaping its original context and forcing institutions to answer questions they may not be ready to document.

Analysis: the DNA findings appear central to the families’ case, but they do not settle the legal question by themselves. The court will still have to test whether Unity Medical Center caused the switch, whether the claims are timely, and how damages should be calculated when the alleged error dates back nearly four decades.

Missing hospital records now sit beside DNA evidence

Unity Medical Center’s defense starts with time. The hospital says medical and staffing records that might have clarified what happened no longer exist, and no members of the delivery team from that period still work there.

“We recognize the profound impact this discovery has had on them and their families,” Unity Medical said in a statement to ABC News. “Unfortunately, because of the passage of nearly four decades, the medical and staffing records that might have provided additional clarity no longer exist, and no members of the delivery team from that time are still employed by the hospital.”

That creates the central tension of the case. DNA can show biological relationships. It cannot, on its own, reconstruct the newborn unit, the staffing sequence, the bracelet process, or the handoff that sent each baby home.

Court filings are likely to focus on several evidence tracks:

• Birth documentation: hospital logs, available certificates, and any surviving admission or discharge material.
• Nursery procedures: how newborns were identified and matched to parents in 1988.
• Bracelet evidence: Bylin’s claim that he still has a bracelet with the wrong identity.
• Expert testimony: whether hospital standards at the time would have made such a switch preventable.
• Damages: emotional harm, family disruption, and any medical-history consequences tied to the alleged switch.

The hospital has also raised the statute of limitations as a potential defense, citing the long gap between the alleged incident and the lawsuit. The families’ counterargument will likely depend on when they could reasonably have discovered the alleged switch, not just when it happened.

Bylin and Morrison have each met their biological parents. They described those reunions to ABC News as “welcoming but awkward.” They have spoken by phone but have not yet met in person.

“We’ve tried to unite as a group and just recognize that no matter what, there’s different ways that this can be socially messy,” Bylin told ABC. “Everyone’s getting to know people that they didn’t know before.”

The Guardian cited the DNA Diagnostics Center estimate that up to 18 babies a year may go home with families that are not their own, though such switches are generally caught almost immediately. The allegation here is harsher: two families say the error lasted into adulthood and only surfaced because a Christmas gift produced a genetic match no one expected.

The next practical test is discovery. If the court lets the case proceed, the fight will narrow to what can still be proven without the original medical and staffing records. The watch item is whether DNA evidence, surviving personal artifacts, and testimony can carry a decades-old hospital negligence claim where the paper trail has largely disappeared.

Impact Analysis

• The case could test hospital accountability for alleged newborn identification failures decades after the fact.
• At-home DNA testing is increasingly uncovering long-hidden family and medical history errors.
• The lawsuit highlights the emotional and legal consequences of identity-altering medical mistakes.