DNA Test Uncovers 36-Year Birth Switch Claim as 2 Families Sue North Dakota Hospital
Two men born hours apart in 1988 say they spent more than 36 years living with the wrong biological families. Now, 6 plaintiffs are asking a jury to decide whether a North Dakota hospital bears responsibility.
A routine DNA test has opened a legal battle involving 2 men, 2 families, and more than 36 years of lost biological connections. Jeremy Morrison and Kyle Bylin allege they were mistakenly switched as newborns at Unity Medical Center in Grafton, North Dakota, then sent home with each other’s biological parents.
The lawsuit presents a staggering human question: What happens when 1 alleged hospital error quietly redirects the lives of multiple generations? Morrison and Bylin reportedly grew up in different families and different communities, unaware that their medical histories, family relationships, and personal identities might have been built around the wrong biological connection.
A DNA Match Rewrote 2 Family Trees
Morrison said the discovery began approximately 2 years ago, when he took a consumer DNA test at age 36. According to his account, an aunt had also submitted DNA, and the system identified Bylin, a stranger Morrison did not recognize, as her biological nephew. Morrison said that the result made no sense because he had 0 known cousins who could explain the match.
The men were reportedly born only a few hours apart at the same hospital on Jan. 26, 1988, according to local reports citing the complaint. Morrison said he and Bylin were believed to be the only 2 babies delivered at the facility that day, supporting the families’ argument that the alleged switch could have occurred only during their hospital stays.
For Morrison, the DNA result also offered an explanation for questions he had carried for more than 3 decades. He recalled looking physically different from relatives in the household that raised him, and he later learned he had 1 older biological brother whose life had unfolded without him. Morrison believes that growing up with that family could also have led him to a North Dakota farm instead of eventually building a life in Colorado.
The Case Involves 6 Plaintiffs and 5 Legal Claims
The case was officially filed on July 7, 2026, in Walsh County District Court against Christian Unity Hospital Corporation, which operates as Unity Medical Center. The 6 plaintiffs are Morrison, Bylin, and the 4 parents who raised the men while believing they were their biological sons.
Together, the plaintiffs assert 5 claims: negligence, medical malpractice, deceit, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress. They are seeking more than $50,000 in damages, although that threshold does not necessarily represent the final amount a jury could consider if the case proceeds to trial.
Unity Medical Center has denied the allegations and asked the court to dismiss the case with prejudice. Hospital attorneys argue that employees exercised appropriate care, skill, and judgment, while also raising the statute of limitations and comparative fault as defenses. After nearly 4 decades, the hospital says the medical and staffing records that might clarify what happened no longer exist.
The hospital has also emphasized its more than 100 years of service to the region and says it has found no evidence that its employees caused the separation. Both the plaintiffs and the hospital have requested 1 jury trial, setting up a dispute in which DNA evidence may be clearer than the surviving documentary record.
Consumer DNA Is Solving Decades-Old Family Mysteries
Cases like this are becoming easier to uncover because consumer DNA databases have expanded dramatically. Ancestry, one of the largest companies in the industry, says its network now contains genetic information from more than 30 million people, giving users a far greater chance of matching with a parent, sibling, aunt, uncle, or cousin they did not know existed. The company involved in Morrison’s discovery was not publicly confirmed in the local interview.
A single test can analyze hundreds of thousands of genetic markers, but the most consequential result may be just 1 unexpected relative. In Morrison’s case, the aunt-to-nephew match reportedly triggered additional testing and research that challenged the family histories of 2 separate households. The discovery shows how a DNA kit purchased to explore ancestry can instead expose adoption secrets, unknown siblings, or alleged hospital errors.
The emotional reunion remains incomplete. Both sets of parents have reportedly met the men they believe are their biological sons, creating 2 long-delayed parent-child introductions, but Morrison and Bylin had not yet met each other when the story became public. That means the 2 people at the center of the alleged switch are still processing the discovery separately.
Modern Hospitals Use Multiple Layers of Identification
Hospital identification procedures have changed significantly since 1988. Current Joint Commission safety standards instruct healthcare organizations to use at least 2 patient identifiers and require distinct identification practices for newborns, who face elevated risks because they cannot state their names and may have few immediately distinguishable physical features.
Modern safeguards may include matching identification bands, unique medical-record numbers, standardized newborn naming systems, and electronic barcode scanning. An analysis highlighted by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that wristband barcode scanning was associated with a 57.5% reduction in medical errors. That finding concerns broader patient-identification mistakes and does not establish what happened at Unity Medical Center nearly 38 years ago.
Patient-identification errors are not limited to birth units. In one AHRQ case review, 4 incidents involving 5 patients were reported within a single 4-week period, including children and adults wearing another person’s identification band. Most were caught quickly, but the examples demonstrate how a simple labeling or verification failure can move through multiple stages of hospital care.
The Lawsuit Is About More Than $50,000
The financial demand may begin above $50,000, but the families describe damage that cannot easily be reduced to a dollar amount. They allege the separation permanently altered parent-child relationships, denied the men decades with biological relatives and changed the homes, careers and communities that shaped their identities.
The court must now evaluate evidence surrounding an alleged event from 1988, testimony from people affected by it, and defenses tied to the passage of nearly 4 decades. DNA may establish biological relationships, but it cannot independently prove who caused the alleged switch, when it occurred, or whether the hospital is legally responsible. Those questions remain disputed.
As of July 17, 2026, no jury has ruled that Unity Medical Center or any former employee switched the newborns. The hospital denies responsibility, and the claims remain allegations. Yet for 2 men and 4 parents, the genetic discovery has already rewritten a family story they believed for most of their lives.
Local reports citing the court complaint identify the birth date as Jan. 26, 1988, rather than Jan. 28, as used in the linked People article.
