The case of the babies exchanged in Logroño came to light in 2021 following the publication of information in the newspaper La Rioja, which aroused enormous interest in the special circumstances that accompanied these women, born in 2002 in the old San Millán hospital in the capital of La Rioja, who were exchanged by mistake and delivered to families that did not suit them. Since that day, the identity of none of the people involved has been transcended, despite numerous intentions, and only the news of the case is known through the various court resolutions. The last of them comes to the sentence of the Superior Court of Justice of La Rioja (TSJR), which partially estimated the appeal presented by one of the people concerned and increases the compensation to 975,000 euros.
The decision of the Chamber of Administrative Disputes is in force in the agreement of the Government Council of La Rioja of 2022, which established compensation of 850,000 euros, from which the Health Insurance Company of Riojano (SERIS) was taken. The applicant is claiming a sum of 3,005,060 euros for “irreparable harm” suffered that day by his lawyer, José Sáez Morga. However, the sentence is not final and can be appealed to the Supreme Court.
The award assumes the criteria established by the Rioja administration to establish the initial compensation. In this way, he estimates the moral damage caused to the minor for the time spent without living with the biological family as well as the damage suffered by knowing his error of filiation. However, it is also argued that “additional circumstances” exist to increase the amount of initial compensation.
In this way, the conviction is based on the fact that she was not able to reestablish the link with her biological mother after knowing her true affiliation, since she died in 2018, before this procedure began. Furthermore, the situation of helplessness when he was a minor is valued, because it was he who considered his abuela as the one who took charge of his care, as a legal guardian, due to the disability of his non-biological parents. Anything that causes moral damage is “more important”, says the sentence, which is why the initial compensation amounts to 125,000 euros, of which the insurance company will also have to pay.
The other exchanged baby also filed a court complaint demanding compensation of three million euros, or 1.3 million euros for his non-biological parents.
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