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Calif. Justices Seem Skeptical About School's Responsibility for Lost Cadaver
Lawsuit against University of California Regents alleges that UC-Irvine lost track of a body donated under the 'willed body program'
The Recorder
March 05, 2009
With his legal arguments gaining little ground in the California Supreme Court on Wednesday, Claremont lawyer Paul Mahoney began appealing to the justices' sense of decency.
That's not normally a good fallback position in a court of law. But the Mahoney & Soll partner had little recourse in trying to convince the court his client should have the right to sue the University of California Regents for allegedly losing her deceased husband's body. His opponent was clearly winning the legal battle.
Mahoney told the justices during oral arguments in San Francisco that the court should make a "public pronouncement" that it doesn't condone state-run universities losing bodies and to make clear "what can and can't be done."
"I do believe this is an area with wide feelings, wide implications," he argued in the waning minutes. "This is a problem that is not going away."
None of the seven justices responded as Mahoney's time ran out.
Orange County widow Evelyn Conroy sued the Regents nine years ago after learning that her husband's body -- which had been donated to UC-Irvine for scientific research upon his death in 1999 -- couldn't be located.
The couple, together 40 years, had signed contracts with the university in 1996 after reading in the Orange County Register about the institution's "willed body program." Conroy claimed she had been promised her husband's body would be treated with respect, tracked through the system and eventually cremated with his ashes spread at sea during a ceremony she could attend.
Eight months after her husband's death, however, Conroy read another newspaper article that indicated hundreds of bodies were missing from the UC-Irvine program. After verifying that James Conroy's body couldn't be located, Evelyn Conroy sued for breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and other claims.
An Orange County judge granted summary judgment for the Regents, and Santa Ana, Calif.'s 4th District Court of Appeal affirmed. The court held that the contract signed by Conroy's husband didn't require UC-Irvine to track the body or notify relatives before disposing of it. The court also said Conroy hadn't proven that the university mishandled James Conroy's body or used it for purposes other than teaching or research.
Conroy had cited the California Supreme Court's 1991 ruling in Christensen v. Superior Court, 54 Cal.3d 868, as support for her argument that the university owed her a special duty of care in using her husband's body. The 4th District, however, said Christensen applied to mortuaries that provide a service to families, not educational institutions to which bodies have been donated for research.
Two other appellate rulings have held the same, but a decision last summer by Los Angeles' 2nd District extended the duties owed by mortuaries to researchers.
During oral arguments on Wednesday, the very first question, asked by Justice Ming Chin, was whether there was any evidence the university mishandled James Conroy's body.
"Losing the body is mishandling the body," Mahoney responded.
When Chin asked Mahoney's opponent, Irvine's Louis Marlin, the same question later, the answer was "absolutely none."
"There was no promise," the Marlin & Saltzman partner said, "to track or keep a record of the body."
He went on to say that tracking the body would be virtually impossible anyway because it would have been taken apart piece by piece. "Body parts are literally scattered to researchers all around the university," he said.
Marlin also defended the sale of seven cervical spines -- none proven to be from James Conroy -- to a scientist in Arizona.
"They were supplying cadaveric material to a legitimate researcher in Arizona," he said. "Nothing in the donation agreement states the idea that research is limited to UCI."
"So," Justice Carol Corrigan asked, "the university's position is 'you give us the body and we can do anything we want with it'?"
"Your honor," Marlin responded, "the university gets to do everything it wants that's legal."
Conroy's lawyer, Mahoney, was put on the spot early on when Justice Marvin Baxter demanded to know where in Conroy's suit she claimed she was promised to be part of a ceremony scattering her husband's ashes.
Time seemed to come to a standstill as Mahoney dug through his files without coming up with an answer. He finally admitted during rebuttal a half hour later that the complaint contained no allegations that James' ashes would be spread at sea.
A ruling in Conroy v. Regents of the University of California, S153002, is due within 90 days.
