Heading: Moore v. Regents of the University of California, 51 Cal. 3d 120, Supreme Court of CA, 1990, 499 U.S. 936 (1991). p66.

Facts: Moore sought treatment for lukemia. During the treatment process UCLA Med Center discovered Moore had an extremely rare and valuable cell type. Without his knowledge they took cells from him and developed their own line of cells named Mo. They patented and sold these cells for hundreds of thousands of dollars, all without Moore’s permission or knowledge.

Procedure: Moore sued for damages in 1984. Causes of action include conversion (wrongful exercise of ownership rights over the personal property of another), lack of informed consent, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud and deceit, and negligent misrepresentation. Trail court sustained D’s demurrers to the conversion cause of action and held that because the conversion cause of action was incorporated into all the other causes of action, these too were defective.

Issue: Does Moore have a case of conversion? Did someone else exercise ownership rights over his property: his cells?

Holding: Complaint states a cause of action for breach the physician’s disclosure obligations, but not for conversion.

Rationale: A doctor must get the patient’s informed consent. No court has ever reported imposed conversion liability for the use of human cells in medical research. It is not advisable to extend tort duty to scientists doing investigation. The patented cell lines and products derived from it cannot be Moore’s property. They are both factually and legally distinct from the cells taken from Moore’s body. Research on human cells plays a critical role in medical research. The doctors should inform the patient what is being done with the cells. There should be disclosure statements and consent.

Dissent: property and ownership laws are broad. Moore has an inherent interest in his body tissue. There is a protectible property interest. Substituting cause of action for conversion does not give the patient much more rights. Difficult to recover because patient must prove casual connection between injury and physician’s failure to inform. Also not enough for P to prove he would have personally refused consent. Must show no reasonably prudent person would have given consent. Very hard to do. Patient can say no, but not say yes and expect to share in the proceeds of his contribution.