Opinion ID: 2507043
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Cause of Action for Negligence

Text: (1) In order to establish liability on a negligence theory, a plaintiff must prove duty, breach, causation, and damages. ( Ortega v. Kmart Corp. (2001) 26 Cal.4th 1200, 1205 [114 Cal.Rptr.2d 470, 36 P.3d 11].) The complaint alleges that the Regents owed a duty of reasonable care with respect to the hiring, retention, training, and supervision of their agents and employees and the proper and respectful performance of all steps associated with the Willed Body Program, including the handling of James Conroy's body in an individual, proper, dignified, and lawful manner. The complaint contends that the Regents breached this duty by conducting or allowing to be conducted private, for-profit tutoring classes using donated bodies; by conducting or allowing to be conducted the transport of donated bodies for profit and the sale of donated body parts for profit; and by failing to ensure that use of the donated bodies conformed to the purpose of the donation. The complaint alleges also that the Regents committed a breach by failing to keep records pertaining to the identification of bodies requested to be returned to family members and by failing to return James Conroy's remains to plaintiff. According to the complaint, these breaches caused plaintiff emotional distress. Plaintiff's claim is predicated on the assumption that use of cadavers in a private, for-profit tutoring class and the sale of body parts for profit is inconsistent with the terms of the donation agreement, which granted UCI the right to use the donated bodies for teaching purposes, scientific research, or such purposes as the said University or its authorized representative shall in their sole discretion deem advisable. Amici curiae Depuy Mitek, Inc., and Johnson & Johnson urge us to find otherwise, pointing out that a donee may, if he so desires, transfer his ownership to another person, whether the gift be of the whole body or merely a part (8A West's U. Laws Ann. (2003) Anatomical Gift Act (1968) com. to § 7, pp. 146-147), and arguing that the sale of donated body parts is prohibited only in specified situations not present here. (See Health & Saf. Code, §§ 7051, 7158.3; Health & Saf. Code, former § 7155, subd. (a).) [1] We need not decide the precise contours of UCI's right to dispose of James Conroy's body, though, because the summary judgment record does not support the claim that the Regents mishandled James Conroy's body in the manner alleged in the complaint. (2) Plaintiff attempted to establish a pattern or practice of mishandling bodies donated to the Willed Body Program, citing the use of cadavers in the private Medbound class, Replica, Inc.'s window display of photographs of cadavers as advertisements for the Medbound class, the harvesting of seven cervical spines for an Arizona hospital in 1999, and a 1998 lawsuit alleging that the Willed Body Program had failed to comply with a provision in the donation agreement at issue there to return the cremated remains of loved ones when their bodies were no longer needed. However, there is no evidence in the record that James Conroy's body in particular was used in a private tutoring class, transported or dismembered for profit, or used in a manner other than what plaintiff contends was authorized by the donation agreement. This is fatal to plaintiff's claim. (3) As we have previously explained, reports of a general pattern of misconduct are not sufficient, in and of themselves, to establish that defendants' misconduct included mishandling of the remains of each plaintiff's decedent.... [A]n allegation that a plaintiff suffered emotional distress on learning of that pattern of misconduct does not allege injury caused by a breach of a duty owed to the plaintiff[]. ( Christensen v. Superior Court (1991) 54 Cal.3d 868, 901 [2 Cal.Rptr.2d 79, 820 P.2d 181] ( Christensen ).) A generalized concern that the remains of a relative may have been involved, arising out of a media report of a pattern of misconduct, is insufficient to satisfy the requirement that there be a direct connection between a defendant's conduct and the injury suffered by the plaintiff. It does not supply a necessary elementthat the injury, here emotional distress, be caused by a breach of the defendant's duty to the particular plaintiff. ( Id. at p. 902.) Our case law instead requires a well-founded substantial certainty that his or her decedent's remains were among those reportedly mistreated. ( Ibid.; see also Bennett v. Regents of University of California (2005) 133 Cal.App.4th 347, 359 [34 Cal.Rptr.3d 579].) No such evidence appears here. Plaintiff contends that causation clearly exists here nonetheless, and relies on a passage in Christensen where we said that factors such as the source of a plaintiff's knowledge of misconduct, when that conduct cannot readily be observed, and the time at which such knowledge was acquired go to the reasonableness of a plaintiff's claim to have suffered severe emotional distress and thus present issues for the trier of fact. ( Christensen, supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 902.) But the quoted excerpt from Christensen was premised on the inclusion of an allegation in the complaint there that the plaintiffs had learned from the media reports that the remains of `their' decedents had been improperly treated, which was sufficient to resist a demurrer. ( Id. at p. 901, italics added.) In light of that allegation, we did not question in Christensen [t]he ability of each plaintiff to prove either that at the time the plaintiff learned of the misconduct he or she knew or had substantial reason to believe that the decedent was a victim of defendant's misconduct, or that the alleged continuing emotional distress each plaintiff suffers is based on knowledge that the decedent's remains have been mishandled. ( Ibid., italics added, fn. omitted.) Here, by contrast, we are reviewing a grant of summary judgment, and the record contains no evidence to support a well-founded substantial certainty that James Conroy's remains were among those reportedly mishandled. ( Id. at p. 902.) Indeed, as the Court of Appeal pointed out, the record refutes plaintiff's claim of mistreatment. Because James Conroy did not pass away until January 1999, his body could not have been involved in the 1998 Medbound class, nor could it have been one of the bodies in the photographs taken down from Replica's storefront in July 1998. Similarly, the unspecified misconduct alleged in the June 1998 lawsuit necessarily predated its filing and therefore could not have involved James Conroy's body. [Plaintiff's] only specific allegation of mistreatment occurring when UCI had possession of her husband's body was the claim that in June 1999 Brown harvested seven spines from [Willed Body Program] cadavers for a doctor in Arizona. Nonetheless, she did not dispute the Regents' evidence that the spines were `fresh tissue specimens from bodies that would have entered the [Willed Body Program] within a few weeks of the Arizona trip,' and hence none of the spines could have been from her husband because he died months earlier in January. Plaintiff relies also on Saari v. Jongordon Corp. (1992) 5 Cal.App.4th 797, [7 Cal.Rptr.2d 82], which she claims is directly on point. Plaintiff has misread Saari. In that case, the plaintiffs had arranged for the defendant corporation to cremate the decedent's body and return the ashes without performing any religious service. In violation of the terms of the contract, the defendant scattered the decedent's ashes at sea, performed a Christian religious service on his remains, and failed to release the ashes to the decedent's longtime companion. Then, in violation of a subsequent agreement with the decedent's longtime companion, the president of the defendant corporation, Richard Jongordon, contacted the decedent's mother and sister and informed them that the decedent's ashes had been scattered at sea following a religious service. ( Saari, supra, 5 Cal.App.4th at p. 801.) The decedent's mother testified that she suffered emotional distress because of the defendant's mishandling of her son's remains and because of her distrust of what Jongordon himself had said about the actual disposition of her son's ashes, and that, among other emotional distress damages, she lay awake at night wondering what had happened to her son's remains. ( Id. at p. 806.) Relying on Christensen 's requirement that a plaintiff establish a well-founded substantial certainty of mistreatment, the defendant corporation argued that the mother's uncertaintyi.e., her distrust of Jongordon's account of what had happened to her son's body and her corresponding uncertainty as to the actual disposition of her son's remainscould not form the basis for recovery of damages for emotional distress. ( Saari, supra, at p. 806.) The Saari court disagreed: This speaks to a different matter than that raised in our case. The issue in Christensen was whether persons who were uncertain if their decedent's remains were actually mishandled could recover for emotional distress arising from this uncertainty. Saari's claim is not that she does not know if Robert's remains were mishandled, but that she is not certain what actual disposition was made of his ashes. As Saari's uncertainty does not raise any doubt about whether there was a breach of duty, Christensen does not preclude this basis of recovery for emotional distress. ( Saari, supra, at p. 806.) The present case is unlike Saari in that plaintiff has not presented evidence that the Regents actually mishandled her husband's remains. Consequently, Saari is inapplicable. Plaintiff would appear at first glance to be on firmer ground as to the allegation in her complaint that the Regents failed in their duty to return her husband's ashes to her, in that the record does indisputably show that his remains were not returned. However, the donation agreement did not specify that the remains were to be returned to plaintiff; rather, the agreement provided simply that UCI had a duty to dispose of the body in accordance with the State Code. Other parts of the record confirm that plaintiff did not request or expect that the remains would be returned to her. Indeed, plaintiff's declaration in opposition to the motion for summary judgment admits that she expected instead to be notified of the scattering of ashes at sea so that she could participate in some way in the service. Defendant was therefore under no duty to return the remains. Plaintiff's belated assertion in her declaration in opposition to the motion for summary judgment that the Regents failed to notify her of the scattering of her husband's ashes does not establish error, either. As stated above, the materiality of a disputed fact is measured by the pleadings. The complaint, which is the operative pleading here, alleged that the Regents had a duty to return her husband's remains, not that the Regents had a duty to notify her of the scattering of her husband's ashes so as to enable her to participate in some way in a service. The Regents, accordingly, had the burden on summary judgment of negating only those `theories of liability as alleged in the complaint' and were not obliged to ``refute liability on some theoretical possibility not included in the pleadings,'' simply because such a claim was raised in plaintiff's declaration in opposition to the motion for summary judgment. ( County of Santa Clara v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (2006) 137 Cal.App.4th 292, 332 [40 Cal.Rptr.3d 313].) `Declarations in opposition to a motion for summary judgment are no substitute for amended pleadings.... If the motion for summary judgment presents evidence sufficient to disprove the plaintiff's claims, as opposed to merely attacking the sufficiency of the complaint, the plaintiff forfeits an opportunity to amend to state new claims by failing to request it.' ( Id. at p. 333; see also Melican v. Regents of University of California (2007) 151 Cal.App.4th 168, 182 [59 Cal.Rptr.3d 672] [We do not require the Regents to negate elements of causes of action plaintiffs never pleaded.].) Nor did the trial court err in granting summary judgment as to plaintiff's claim that the Regents breached their duty to her to maintain adequate records to ensure that the donated bodies were used in accordance with the purpose for which the donation was made. To the extent plaintiff premised such a duty on the Regents' concomitant duty to return her husband's remains, the claim fails, given that plaintiff now concedes that the Regents had no duty to return her husband's remains. To the extent plaintiff contends that the Regents owed her a duty to maintain records of her husband's body even in the absence of any duty to return his remains, we again disagree. Such a duty appears inconsistent with the donation agreement itself, which allows UCI to use the body for teaching purposes, scientific research, or such purposes as the said University or its authorized representative shall in their sole discretion deem advisable and which imposes no duty on UCI at the completion of its research except to dispose of the body in accordance with the State Code. The Legislature does now require the donee to return the decedent's cremated remains, unless the donor has previously designated otherwise in the document of gift (Health & Saf. Code, § 7151.40, subd. (b)), but this provision applies only to donations made pursuant to a donation agreement executed after January 1, 2001 (see id., former § 7154, subd. (d)), and we are loath to expand a donee's duties in this area beyond those the Legislature has provided. We note as well that plaintiff cites no authority for her assertion that the Regents, even in the absence of a duty to return her husband's remains, owed her a continuing duty to comply with the Willed Body Program's own internal procedures concerning the tracking of cadavers. (4) Finally, we reject plaintiff's contention that her husband's donation of his body created a duty to dispose of the remains in a manner that would not shock the sensibility to family members who enabled [UCI] to take possession of the [body] in the first place. Upon execution of the donation agreement and James Conroy's death, the statutory right to control the disposition of James Conroy's body passed to UCI. (Health & Saf. Code, former §§ 7150.5, subd. (h), 7154, subd. (a).) As the statutory right holder, UCI had the exclusive right to control the disposition of the remains, and may do so in a manner offensive to other family members. ( Christensen, supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 891, fn. 19.) The only limitation was that imposed by the donation agreement itself, which provided that final disposition of [the] body by UCI shall be in accordance with the State Code. State law, which specifically exempts UCI and other medical schools, hospitals, and public institutions from the Funeral Directors and Embalmers Law (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 7609), does not impose a duty on UCI to conduct its teaching and research in such a way as to safeguard the sensibilities of the surviving family members. Even where not mishandled, bodies donated to the [Willed Body Program] are routinely subjected to treatment that could foreseeably cause emotional distress to family members.... But the Legislature has made a policy decision based on the importance of medical education and research that universities may act in the manner described above, and [has] expressly exempted them from the myriad of laws governing funeral directors. ( Melican v. Regents of University of California, supra, 151 Cal.App.4th at p. 181.) For these reasons, the order granting summary judgment was not erroneous as to plaintiff's negligence cause of action.