Borrowed Brains May Lead to Damages

  A Yiddish Proverb claims "Borrowed brains have no value." Maybe. But not when it comes to litigation.  

          When 30 year old Mark Albrecht drowned after an epileptic seizure, the state ordered an autopsy by the local coroner. After the procedure, the body was returned to the family for burial. What was not returned was Albrecht’s brain which had been removed by the coroner and later cremated and discarded as medical waste.

            The family filed a class action lawsuit against all of Ohio’s coroners. At issue is whether the next of kin have a protected right in the organs of their loved ones or at least the right to be notified after the organs are removed with the opportunity to claim them when the state no longer needs them. The federal court certified the issue to the Ohio Supreme Court which just heard oral argument in the matter. The briefs can be accessed on line as can the oral argument.

            Both sides claim an adverse result will lead to an avalanche of further trouble. The coroners claim a plaintiff’s win here would greatly restrict the right of the state to conduct autopsies, an argument with little merit. The plaintiffs, on the other hand, claim scientists would view a decision favorable to the defense as an invitation to harvest organs obtained in autopsy for use in medical research.

            The bottom line is that it would seem to ask little of the coroners if they had to give notice to the interested families of the autopsy procedures and the right to obtain the removed body parts after the autopsy is completed.

Alan Milstein