Opinion ID: 2608931
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Moore's Claim Under Existing Law

Text: (7) To establish a conversion, plaintiff must establish an actual interference with his ownership or right of possession. ... Where plaintiff neither has title to the property alleged to have been converted, nor possession thereof, he cannot maintain an action for conversion. [19] ( Del E. Webb Corp. v. Structural Materials Co. (1981) 123 Cal. App.3d 593, 610-611 [176 Cal. Rptr. 824], italics added. See also General Motors A. Corp. v. Dallas (1926) 198 Cal. 365, 370 [245 P. 184].) (4c) Since Moore clearly did not expect to retain possession of his cells following their removal, [20] to sue for their conversion he must have retained an ownership interest in them. But there are several reasons to doubt that he did retain any such interest. First, no reported judicial decision supports Moore's claim, either directly or by close analogy. Second, California statutory law drastically limits any continuing interest of a patient in excised cells. Third, the subject matters of the Regents' patent  the patented cell line and the products derived from it  cannot be Moore's property. Neither the Court of Appeal's opinion, the parties' briefs, nor our research discloses a case holding that a person retains a sufficient interest in excised cells to support a cause of action for conversion. We do not find this surprising, since the laws governing such things as human tissues, [21] transplantable organs, [22] blood, [23] fetuses, [24] pituitary glands, [25] corneal tissue, [26] and dead bodies [27] deal with human biological materials as objects sui generis, regulating their disposition to achieve policy goals rather than abandoning them to the general law of personal property. It is these specialized statutes, not the law of conversion, to which courts ordinarily should and do look for guidance on the disposition of human biological materials. Lacking direct authority for importing the law of conversion into this context, Moore relies, as did the Court of Appeal, primarily on decisions addressing privacy rights. [28] One line of cases involves unwanted publicity. ( Lugosi v. Universal Pictures (1979) 25 Cal.3d 813 [160 Cal. Rptr. 323, 603 P.2d 425, 10 A.L.R.4th 1150]; Motschenbacher v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (9th Cir.1974) 498 F.2d 821 [interpreting Cal. law].) These opinions hold that every person has a proprietary interest in his own likeness and that unauthorized, business use of a likeness is redressible as a tort. But in neither opinion did the authoring court expressly base its holding on property law. ( Lugosi v. Universal Pictures, supra, 25 Cal.3d at pp. 819, 823-826; Motschenbacher v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, supra, 498 F.2d at pp. 825-826.) Each court stated, following Prosser, that it was pointless to debate the proper characterization of the proprietary interest in a likeness. ( Motschenbacher v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, supra, 498 F.2d at p. 825, quoting Prosser, Law of Torts (4th ed. 1971) at p. 807; Lugosi v. Universal Pictures, supra, 25 Cal.3d at pp. 819, 824.) For purposes of determining whether the tort of conversion lies, however, the characterization of the right in question is far from pointless. Only property can be converted. Not only are the wrongful-publicity cases irrelevant to the issue of conversion, but the analogy to them seriously misconceives the nature of the genetic materials and research involved in this case. Moore, adopting the analogy originally advanced by the Court of Appeal, argues that [i]f the courts have found a sufficient proprietary interest in one's persona, how could one not have a right in one's own genetic material, something far more profoundly the essence of one's human uniqueness than a name or a face? However, as the defendants' patent makes clear  and the complaint, too, if read with an understanding of the scientific terms which it has borrowed from the patent  the goal and result of defendants' efforts has been to manufacture lymphokines. [29] Lymphokines, unlike a name or a face, have the same molecular structure in every human being and the same, important functions in every human being's immune system. Moreover, the particular genetic material which is responsible for the natural production of lymphokines, and which defendants use to manufacture lymphokines in the laboratory, is also the same in every person; it is no more unique to Moore than the number of vertebrae in the spine or the chemical formula of hemoglobin. [30] Another privacy case offered by analogy to support Moore's claim establishes only that patients have a right to refuse medical treatment. ( Bouvia v. Superior Court (1986) 179 Cal. App.3d 1127 [225 Cal. Rptr. 297].) In this context the court in Bouvia wrote that `[e]very human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body....' ( Id., at p. 1139, quoting from Schloendorff v. New York Hospital, supra, 211 N.Y. 125 [105 N.E. 92, 93].) [31] Relying on this language to support the proposition that a patient has a continuing right to control the use of excised cells, the Court of Appeal in this case concluded that [a] patient must have the ultimate power to control what becomes of his or her tissues. To hold otherwise would open the door to a massive invasion of human privacy and dignity in the name of medical progress. Yet one may earnestly wish to protect privacy and dignity without accepting the extremely problematic conclusion that interference with those interests amounts to a conversion of personal property. Nor is it necessary to force the round pegs of privacy and dignity into the square hole of property in order to protect the patient, since the fiduciary-duty and informed-consent theories protect these interests directly by requiring full disclosure. The next consideration that makes Moore's claim of ownership problematic is California statutory law, which drastically limits a patient's control over excised cells. Pursuant to Health and Safety Code section 7054.4, [n]otwithstanding any other provision of law, recognizable anatomical parts, human tissues, anatomical human remains, or infectious waste following conclusion of scientific use shall be disposed of by interment, incineration, or any other method determined by the state department [of health services] to protect the public health and safety. [32] Clearly the Legislature did not specifically intend this statute to resolve the question of whether a patient is entitled to compensation for the nonconsensual use of excised cells. A primary object of the statute is to ensure the safe handling of potentially hazardous biological waste materials. [33] Yet one cannot escape the conclusion that the statute's practical effect is to limit, drastically, a patient's control over excised cells. By restricting how excised cells may be used and requiring their eventual destruction, the statute eliminates so many of the rights ordinarily attached to property that one cannot simply assume that what is left amounts to property or ownership for purposes of conversion law. It may be that some limited right to control the use of excised cells does survive the operation of this statute. There is, for example, no need to read the statute to permit scientific use contrary to the patient's expressed wish. [34] A fully informed patient may always withhold consent to treatment by a physician whose research plans the patient does not approve. That right, however, as already discussed, is protected by the fiduciary-duty and informed-consent theories. Finally, the subject matter of the Regents' patent  the patented cell line and the products derived from it  cannot be Moore's property. This is because the patented cell line is both factually and legally distinct from the cells taken from Moore's body. [35] Federal law permits the patenting of organisms that represent the product of human ingenuity, but not naturally occurring organisms. ( Diamond v. Chakrabarty (1980) 447 U.S. 303, 309-310 [65 L.Ed.2d 144, 150, 100 S.Ct. 2204].) [36] Human cell lines are patentable because [l]ong-term adaptation and growth of human tissues and cells in culture is difficult  often considered an art ..., and the probability of success is low. (OTA Rep., supra, at p. 33; see fn. 2, ante. ) It is this inventive effort that patent law rewards, not the discovery of naturally occurring raw materials. Thus, Moore's allegations that he owns the cell line and the products derived from it are inconsistent with the patent, which constitutes an authoritative determination that the cell line is the product of invention. [37] Since such allegations are nothing more than arguments or conclusions of law, they of course do not bind us. ( Daar v. Yellow Cab Co., supra, 67 Cal.2d at p. 713.)