Moore V. Regents of The University of California - Decision

Decision

Moore brought suit against defendants Dr. David W. Golde (Golde), a physician who attended Moore at UCLA Medical Center; the Regents of the University of California (Regents), who own and operate the university; Shirley G. Quan, a researcher employed by the Regents; Genetics Institute, Inc. (Genetics Institute); and Sandoz Pharmaceuticals Corporation and related entities (collectively Sandoz).

The court found that Moore had no property rights to his discarded cells or any profits made from them. However, the court concluded that the research physician did have an obligation to reveal his financial interest in the materials harvested from Mr. Moore, and that Mr. Moore would be allowed to bring a claim for any injury that he sustained as a result of the physician's failure to disclose those circumstances.

The opinion written by Justice Edward Panelli was joined by three of the seven judges of the Supreme Court of California.

The opinion first looked at Moore's claim of property interests under existing law. The court first rejected the argument that a person has an absolute right to the unique products of their body because his products were not unique. " no more unique to Moore than the number of vertebrae in the spine or the chemical formula of hemoglobin." The court then rejected the argument that his spleen should be protected as property in order to protect Moore's privacy and dignity. The court held these interests were already protected by informed consent. The court noted laws that required the destruction of human organs as some indication that the legislature had intended to prevent patients from possessing their extracted organs. Finally, the property at issue may not have been Moore's cells but the cell line created from Moore's cells.

The court then looked at the policy behind having Moore's cells considered property. Because conversion of property is a strict liability tort, the court feared that extending property rights to include organs would have a chilling effect on medical research. Laboratories doing research receive a large volume of medical samples and could not be expected to know or discover whether somewhere down the line their samples were illegally converted. Furthermore, Moore's interest in his bodily integrity and privacy are protected by the requirement of informed consent (which must also inform about economic interests).

Justice Arabian wrote a concurring opinion stating that the deep philosophical, moral and religious issues that are presented by this case could not be decided by the court.

Justice Broussard concurred in part and dissented in part.

Justice Mosk dissented stating that Moore could have been denied some property rights and given others. Mosk would hold that at the very least Moore had had the "right to do with his own tissue what the defendants did with it." That is, as soon as the tissue was removed Moore at least had the right to choose to sell it to a laboratory or have it destroyed. Thus there would be no necessity to hold labs strictly liable for conversion when property rights can be broken up to allow Moore to extract a significant portion of the economic value created by his tissue. Furthermore, in order to prove damages from informed consent Moore must prove both that he would not have consented to the procedure had he been properly informed and that a reasonable person would not have consented to the procedure if they had been properly informed. Thus Moore's chances of proving damages through informed consent are slim. Also, Moore could not consent to the procedure but reserve the right to sell his organs. Finally, Moore can only sue his doctor and nobody else for failing to adequately inform him. Thus Moore is unlikely to win, could not extract the economic value of his tissue even if he refused consent and could not sue the parties that might be culpable for exploiting him.