John Moore (Appellant)

v.
The Regents of University of California (Respondent)
Citation- 51 Cal. 3d 120; 271 Cal. Rptr. 146; 793 P.2d 479

INTRODUCTION
For this situation it is to be decide if Appellant has expressed a reason for activity against his
doctor and different Respondents for utilizing his cells  in possibly worthwhile therapeutic
research without his authorization. Appealing party affirms that his doctor neglected to reveal
prior scrutinization and financial engrossment in the cells before acquiring agree to the
therapeutic methodology by which they were separated. The higher court supported every
one of respondents' protests than the third changed objection, and the Court of Appeal
switched. It has been hold that the protest expresses a reason for activity for rupture of the
doctor's divulgence commitments, yet not for conversion.

CASE BACKGROUND
PARTIES- John Moore (Appellant)
v.
The Regents of University of California (Respondent)
MAJORITY JUDGES- 1. Edward A. Panelli
2. Malcom M. Lucas
3. David N. Eagleson
4. Joyce L. Kennard
MINORITY JUDGES- 1. Armand Arabian (Concurring Opinion)
2. Allen Broussard (Concurring/Dissenting Opinion)
3. Stanley Mosk (Dissenting Opinion)
SUMMARY OF FACTS

1. Petitioner Moore was treated by Respondent Golde at Respondent U.C.L.A. Medicinal

Center for bristly cell leukemia . This treatment course happened between October 1976 and
September 1983, and incorporated a few examples where Respondent Golde expelled blood,
bone marrow suction and a few other substantial substances from the body of the Appellant.
2. In August of 1979, Respondent Golde set up a "cell line" from the issue taken from
Appellant's body.
3. Thereafter, on January 30, 1981, Respondent Regents of University of California
connected for a patent on the cell line.
4. On March 20, 1984, the patent issued and named Respondent Golde and Quan (a specialist
at U.C.L.A.) as the innovators and the Respondent Regents as
5. Respondents Genetics Institute Inc., and Sandoz Pharmaceuticals were added because of
their ensuing interests in the cell line.
6. The Appellant John Moore sued the respondents alleging that the respondents had
conversed his bodily fluids.
LEGAL PROVISIONS
MAXIM- Non est informatus which means that “He is not informed.”.
SYNOPSIS OF RULE OF LAW-
That no activity dependent on a hypothesis of transformation might be arraigned where the
topic of the charge are extracted cells taken from Plaintiff over the span of a therapeutic
treatment; nonetheless, that an activity might be founded on speculations of break of guardian
obligation or absence of educated assent.
ISSUE RAISED
1. Can there be a property guarantee to organic liquids and tissues that have been
expelled from the body.
2. Did the Appellant hold a proprietorship enthusiasm for the extracted cells and matter
with the end goal that he may arraign the Respondent for change?
3. Should Conversion obligation be expanded?
CRUX OF THE JUDGEMENT
Obligation- The Respondent had an obligation or obligations to the Appellant, for example,
the obligation of good confidence and reasonable managing, the obligation of dependability,
the obligation of total honesty In requesting the patient's agree to treatment, a surgeon has a
guardian obligation to reveal all data which matters to the patient's choice.

Breach- The Respondent broke his obligation by neglecting to unveil certain data,
misappropriation of body tissues, disregard of duties. The reason for activity can
appropriately be portrayed either as the rupture of a trustee obligation to uncover the realities
which matters to the patient's assent or, then again, as the exhibition of therapeutic methods
without first having acquired the patient's informed assent.
Cause-A claim for an offer in the potential benefits from items or research that had been
gotten from his cell line, without his insight or assent was organized. Moore's claim affirmed
that Golde had known about the potential for budgetary advantage when restorative assent
was gotten, yet he had covered that from Moore.
Injury-

DETAILED COMMENTARY ON ISSUES

A. Breach of Fiduciary Duty and Lack of Informed Consent

Moore more than once asserted that Golde neglected to uncover the degree of his
examination and financial interests in Moore's cells before acquiring assent to the restorative
systems by which the fluids were removed. These charges, in our view, express a reason for
activity against Golde for attacking a  legally ensured enthusiasm of his patient. This reason
for activity can appropriately be described either as the breach of a guardian obligation to
reveal actualities material to the patient's assent or, on the other hand, as the presentation of
medicinal techniques without first having gotten the patient's educated assent.
Our examination starts with three settled standards. First, “a person of adult years and in
sound mind has the right, in the exercise of control over his own body, to determine whether
or not to submit to lawful medical treatment.”1Second, “the patient's consent to treatment, to
be effective, must be an informed consent.2Third, in soliciting the patient's consent, a
physician has a fiduciary duty to disclose all information material to the patient's decision.
 These principles lead to the following conclusions:  (1) a physician must disclose personal
interests unrelated to the patient's health, whether research or economic, that may affect the
physician's professional judgment;  and (2) a physician's failure to disclose such interests may
give rise to a cause of action for performing medical procedures without informed consent or
breach of fiduciary duty.
To be sure, questions about the validity of a patient's consent to a procedure typically arise
when the patient alleges that the physician failed to disclose medical risks, as in malpractice
cases, and not when the patient alleges that the physician had a personal interest, as in this
case. The concept of informed consent, however, is broad enough to encompass the latter.  
The scope of the physician's communication to the patient ․ must be measured by the patient's
need, and that need is whatever information is material to the decision.

It is important to note that no law prohibits a physician from conducting research in the same
area in which he practices. Progress in medicine often depends upon physicians, such as those
practicing at the university hospital where Moore received treatment, who conduct research
while caring for their patients.

 Golde argues that the scientific use of cells that have already been removed cannot possibly
affect the patient's medical interests. The argument is correct in one instance but not in
1
Cobbs v. Grant (1972) 8 Cal. 3d 279, 242 [ 104 Cal. Rptr, 505, 502 P. 2d7]
2
Cobbs v. Grant, supra, 8 Cal.3d at p. 242, 104 Cal.Rptr. 505, 502 P.2d 1.
another.   If a physician has no plans to conduct research on a patient's cells at the time he
recommends the medical procedure by which they are taken, then the patient's medical
interests have not been impaired. In that instance the argument is correct. On the other hand,
a physician who does have a pre-existing research interest might, consciously or
unconsciously, take that into consideration in recommending the procedure. In that instance
the argument is incorrect:  the physician's extraneous motivation may affect his judgment and
is, thus, material to the patient's consent.

We acknowledge that there is a competing consideration.   To require disclosure of research

and economic interests may corrupt the patient's own judgment by distracting him from the
requirements of his health. Accordingly, we hold that a physician who is seeking a patient's
consent for a medical procedure must, in order to satisfy his fiduciary duty  10 and to obtain the
patient's informed consent, disclose personal interests unrelated  to the patient's health,
whether research or economic, that may affect his medical judgment.

A. Conversion

Moore also attempts to characterize the invasion of his rights as a conversion—a tort that
protects against interference with possessory and ownership interests in personal property.  
He theorizes that he continued to own his cells following their removal from his body, at least
for the purpose of directing their use, and that he never consented to their use in potentially  
lucrative medical research. Thus, to complete Moore's argument, Respondent's unauthorized
use of his cells constitutes a conversion. As a result of the alleged conversion, Moore claims a
proprietary interest in each of the products that any of the defendants might ever create from
his cells or the patented cell line.

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. Human cell lines are
patentable because " long haul adjustment and development of human tissues and cells in
culture is troublesome—regularly thought to be a workmanship ․," and the likelihood of
accomplishment is low. It is this innovative exertion that patent law rewards, not the
disclosure of normal crude materials. Subsequently, Moore's charges that he claims the cell
line and the items got from it are conflicting with the patent, which establishes a legitimate
assurance that the cell line is the result of development. Since such claims are simply
contentions or finishes of law, they obviously don't tie us.

SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENTS AND CONCLUSION

Appealing party did not express a reason for activity dependent on transformation, yet may
arraign the case dependent on hypotheses of break of trustee obligation or absence of
educated assent. A tort of change happens when individual property of one individual is
meddled with by another as to possessory or proprietorship interests. For this situation the
Appellant contends that the issue taken from his body had a place with him and that he didn't
approve the Respondents to utilize the extracted material to benefit. Further, that as the
aftereffect of the supposed transformation, Appellant declares a privilege to a bit of any
benefit coming about because of the utilization of the extracted material. The Court takes
note of that truly the tort of change emerged to settle debates among washouts and
discoverers.

The Court inspected Appellant's case under the current law and found that no legal choice
could be found to help the case, that statutory law radically restrains the proceeding with
enthusiasm of a patient in extracted tissue, lastly that the topic of the patent can't in any way,
shape or form have a place with Appellant. The Court noticed a California resolution which
requested that any materials expelled from patients be discarded in a sheltered issue. The
authoritative plan was, as indicated by the Court, to constrain the patient's responsibility for
material extracted over the span of medicinal treatment. The Court finds that the cell line is
verifiably and lawfully unmistakable from any piece of materials expelled from Appellant's
body.

The Court is worried about the privileges of the patient. Be that as it may, transformation is a
severe obligation tort which subjects guiltless outsiders to risk for acts which may not be
under their course and control. The court found that the rupture of trustee obligation
hypothesis and the absence of educated assent hypothesis were more qualified to secure the
privileges of patients. Therefore, the court declined to expand change obligation in this suit.
Holding/Rule
1. There is no property rights to the bodily fluids that have been removed from the body.
2. Moore’s complaint states a cause of action for fiduciary duty and lack of informed
consent but not for conversion. Moore's objection expresses a reason for action for
fiduciary obligation and absence of informed assent however not for conversion.
LIST OF SIMILAR JUDGEMENTS
1. Allard v. Pac. Nat'l Bank - 99 Wash. 2d 394, 663 P.2d 104 (1983).

The beneficiaries alleged that the trustee failed to comply with the ordinary standards
of trust administration when it sold the property, and that the trustee breached its
fiduciary duty in its management of the trusts by failing to inform the beneficiaries of
the impending sale when the only asset of the trusts was the property. The
beneficiaries also alleged that the trustee further breached its fiduciary duties by
failing to ensure that the sale was for the highest possible price, and that the trustee
had a duty to either obtain an independent appraisal of the property or to place the
property on the open market prior to selling it. The court held that the trustee failed to
adequately notify the
beneficiaries of the impending sale and failed to attain the highest price by failing to
adequately market the property. Further, the beneficiaries were entitled to recover all
 their attorney fees expended at both the trial and on appeal because the trustee
breached its fiduciary duty.

2. Augusta Mut. Ins. Co. v. Mason, 274 Va. 199, 645 S.E.2d 290 (2007).

There is a fiduciary duty or obligation in all situations where unique certainty is rested
upon the person who in great heart will undoubtedly act with due respect for the
enthusiasm of the one resting the certainty. Consolidated in any agreement between a
trustee and its chief is a commitment to uncover anything known to him that may
influence the key's choice on whether to act or the proper behaviour. In this suit by an
insurance agency against a protection specialist, any guardian obligation purportedly
ruptured existed exclusively as a result of the legally binding connection between the
back up plan and the operator and in that capacity the guarantor has neglected to
declare a legitimate case for break of trustee obligation.

3. Patel v. Anand, L.L.C., 264 Va. 81, 564 S.E.2d 140 (2002).

On the off chance that where guardian retains data from its head, which whenever
revealed, would have made the chief reject the exchange, the proportion of harms is
the distinction between the estimation of the thing expected and the estimation of the
thing really got. Offended party for this situation neglected to present proof dependent
on that standard.