Sofia-Vergara-afp

There have been a ton of articles in the news about actress/model/great accent, Sofia Vergara.  She was engaged to a man a couple of years ago and they tried twice, unsuccessfully, to have a baby. They froze some embryos that were injected with her ex-fiance’s sperm in case they wanted to try again.

They broke up and like any sensible human, Gloria, I mean Sofia did not want to become a parent with a man whom she had no relationship with anymore.

The ex fiance for some reason wants to be a parent so badly that he’s claiming a right to these frozen embryos so they can be implanted in a surrogate and hopefully lead to him and Vergara becoming parents together.

Why he would want to do this is really anyone’s guess.  If he wants to be a Dad there are a ton of better ways including getting in to a new, loving relationship, finding a different egg donor or adoption.  I’m sure the fact that Vergara is reportedly worth in the nine figures has nothing to do with his attempts to keep these eggs.

He’s lost so far and the reason is that Vegara was smart enough to put a contract together that determined control of these embryos.  Specifically it states that they both must consent in order for the embryos to be implanted.  Sounds like a common sense contract as it requires two consenting adults, much like sex.

But even if the contract didn’t make sense, the important part is that it’s a contract which they both agreed to.  The ex might think this a bad deal or unfair, but it’s no different than if you sign a contract to buy a car and a week later wish you hadn’t done so.

A contract is a contract.  This is why we always encourage people to put things in writing.

On “Modern Family”, Vergara doesn’t play the brightest woman.  But in real life she’s clearly a legal genius.  And it doesn’t take much to achieve that status.  Just the guts and sense to not act on emotions or be afraid of confrontation, but instead have the willingness to put things in writing.

In your life, if you are going to loan someone money and want to get paid back, put it in writing. If you hire someone to do work for you or are doing work for someone else, the terms are only clear and enforceable if they are on paper.   If it’s not in writing then it’s a he said/she said game in the courts which costs time, money and leaves you with an uncertain result.