Woman sues to horn in on sisters’ $28M inheritance after discovering family tie on 23andMe
A woman from Massachusetts made a surprising family reunion after a 23andMe DNA test revealed two half‑sisters, but she soon tried to claim a cut of a large hospital‑malpractice settlement that her newly‑found relatives had won.
Carmen Thomas, 28, learned in February 2023 that she and her two biological sisters—Kali and Abigail Brown—shared the same father, Joe. The trio had never met, and Joe died in 2018 from a previously undiagnosed aortic aneurysm.
According to court documents, Joe was admitted to Salem Hospital in January 2018 after reporting severe pain that started in his upper abdomen and radiated toward his chest and back. He spent most of that day wrestling with breathlessness, but doctors ultimately discovered a life‑threatening aneurysm too late. He passed away the following morning.
Kali, Abigail and their mother, Kristin, filed a lawsuit against the hospital, arguing that its failure to diagnose the aneurysm in time cost the family precious hours and led to Joe’s death. A jury agreed and, in April 2023, awarded them a staggering $28.8 million.
Shortly after Thomas met the girls to introduce herself, she learned of the settlement and filed a lawsuit against the Browns, hoping to obtain a portion of the payout.
In her complaint, Thomas highlighted what appeared to be a jubilant reunion, complete with photographs taken the month before the settlement. She emphasized that their family gathering seemed joyous at the time.
The Browns replied, filing an opposition that claimed Abigail and Kali were initially “very upset and hesitant” to meet Thomas, but ultimately decided to do so for reasons of kindness. According to the Browns, they quickly regretted their decision when Thomas “very assertive and possessive” over the family from early on, according to a legal filing.
Joseph Lipchitz, the Browns’ attorney, accused Thomas of attempting to “prey on the family financially and emotionally by demanding that they pay for her gas, food, and alcohol,” and he claimed she threatened to harm herself if they did not respond to her messages. He also alleged that Thomas’s “attempt to obtain an injunction to freeze the assets of a grieving family is not only meritorious, as a matter of law, it should have been seen as an affront to this Court,” adding that the suit was a “complete affront” to the court.
The Browns said the family was stunned by the suit. “The death of their father was extraordinarily traumatic, as you can imagine. That was compounded by this putative heir all of a sudden showing up and demanding money,” Lipchitz told the Wall Street Journal.
By early April, the sisters decided to cut off contact with Thomas entirely, filing a court statement that they had reasons to doubt the alleged family tie because Thomas’s mother had never disclosed any relationship with Joe Brown.
Lipchitz noted that the case eventually “was resolved favorably” for his clients, in part because Thomas’s claim was made too late after her alleged father’s death.
Meanwhile, 23andMe, the name‑brand DNA test company, had filed for bankruptcy in March, raising concerns over how it would protect the personal data of its 15 million customers.
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