A Staten Island judge has refused to dismiss a consolidated lawsuit accusing RTI Donor Services Inc., a tissue recovery firm, of using deceased people’s tissues that had been stolen, ruling that RTI did not need to have actual knowledge of the thefts for it to be liable.
However, in his Aug. 16 ruling in Human Tissue Litigation, 750000/08, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Maltese (See Profile) narrowed the claims and dismissed some of the individual plaintiffs. The Staten Island litigation includes 46 pending actions over the alleged tissue use, consolidated for discovery.
