Facts: P, a leukemia patient at UCLA Medical Center (D). In the course of treating P, D
removed his spleen with his consent. D used P’s cells to establish a “cell line” which
they patented. The cell line turned out to have great medical and commercial value and
at the time of the suit, UCLA earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties. P
sued D’s for 13 different causes of action, including conversion, he asserted that by
taking his spleen, without telling him that his cells have commercial value or that they
would e used for commercial purposes, that D’s had converted P’s property.
Holding: Reversed
Rationale:
- there is no authority in favor of P’s claim that he has a property right to excised
bodily tissue (no intent to possess)
- P’s interest is limited by statute that which requires that tissues used in scientific
and medical use, that they must be disposed of by incineration or other sanitary
method
- Patent is conclusive and P has no right to this intervention
- Danger to research of social useful reasons
- Judicial restraint (legislature should be in charge of this)
- P’s rights are adequately protected under other causes of action
Dissent:
Pt. 1: Majority argues that there is no case law that directly supports or closely analogizes
P’s claims, however there is no reported decision rejecting such a claim either. The
majority also argues that this situation is one best resolved by a legislature. However,
conversion has its roots in the common law, and the development of common law is
determined by social needs of the community from which it serves. Flexibility and
capacity for growth and adaptation is the excellence of the common law, and the common
law system, though spoken about by the legislature, has always been the primary
instrument of the courts
Pt. 2: The broad, abstract definition of property (bundle of rights). The Cal. Health
statute should not be read so broad as to assume P lost all of his rights to his cells after
they were removed from his body. At the very least, at the time of the excision he had at
least “the right to do with his own tissue whatever D did with it.” i.e. he could have
contracted with researchers and companies to develop and exploit the vast commercial
potential of his tissue and its products. Also, the majority has shown no precedent for the
idea that an individual holds the right to exploit the commercial potential of his own
tissue
Pt. 3: The majority states because D patented a new invention, P has no claim in the
property rights of the invention. This does not meet the claim that P is entitled to
compensation for D’s unauthorized use of his bodily tissues before D patented the cell
line.
Pt. 4: The balancing test for public policy the majority mentions: weighing the protection
of a medical patient’s right to make autonomous decisions vs. the threat of civil liability
to innocent parties who are engaged in socially useful activities, does not weigh in favor
of the latter, as the majority contends. Society’s acknowledgment of the profound ethical
imperative to respect the human body as the physical and temporal expression of the
unique human persona and society’s value of fundamental fairness in dealings between
its members and condemnation of unjust enrichment surely outweigh the dissipating
concept of “free exchange of ideas”
Pt. 5: The fact that the legislature is capable of deciding such issues as these does not
relieve the courts of their duty to enforce an effective judicial remedy for the wrong
alleged here. Torts are creatures of common law, a duty of the courts, regardless of how
expansive technology has become
Pt. 6: The fact that other claims of action still suffice to grant P remedies does not trump
the idea that he should have damages under conversion law. The barriers for recovery
are high under non-disclosure causes. Also, non-disclosure does not solve the question of
whether a patient has the right to refuse consent, i.e. the right to prohibit the
commercialization of his tissue. Non-disclosure also fails to satisfy the claims of any P
whose claim is not against a physician-patient relationship