Case brief summary
Doctors must tell patients about personal research or money interests that could affect their medical advice before treatment. Suing someone for taking your property does not work for body cells removed from a patient.
Facts
A doctor treated Moore for leukemia, removed his spleen, and kept taking samples for years, claiming it was for his health. Actually, the doctor and university secretly used his cells to create a patented, profitable cell line.
Procedural history
The trial court dismissed all of Moore's claims. The Court of Appeal reversed, allowing his property claim. The California Supreme Court then reviewed the case.
Issue
Can a patient sue his doctor for hiding financial interests before getting consent, or sue for stealing property, when his cells were used in profitable research without permission?
Holding
Moore could sue his doctor for not disclosing financial interests before getting his consent, but could not sue for property theft since he no longer owned his removed cells.
Reasoning
Patients have a right to decide what happens to their own bodies, so doctors must disclose personal interests that could bias their medical judgment, and failing to do so can be sued as a breach of trust or lack of true consent. However, extending property law to removed body cells would be a major, risky expansion of the law, since laws already limit what patients can do with removed tissue and the patented cell line is a different, invented product, not simply Moore's original cells. The court worried that letting patients sue for conversion would expose innocent medical researchers to lawsuits and slow down valuable scientific research, and decided this kind of policy change about ownership of body tissue is better left to the legislature.
Opinions
Majority (Panelli): Doctors must disclose personal research or financial interests before treatment, but removed body cells cannot support a conversion claim.
Concurrence (Arabian): Agrees with the majority but adds that treating human tissue as a sellable commodity raises deep moral questions courts should not resolve alone.
Dissent (Broussard): Agrees a fiduciary duty claim exists but would also allow a conversion claim, since the doctor interfered with Moore's right to control his cells before removal.
Dissent (Mosk): Would allow the conversion claim too, arguing Moore kept property rights in his cells and fairness requires he share in the profits made from them.