Most of your Property course is about land, leases, and dead people's estates. Then Moore v. Regents shows up and asks the question that makes the whole class suddenly interesting: do you own your own body? A man's spleen becomes a patented, multimillion-dollar cell line, and the California Supreme Court has to decide whether he can sue to get a piece of it. The answer — no, not through property law, but maybe through the doctor-patient relationship — is why this case is a fixture in the "what is property?" unit and a favorite exam vehicle for testing whether you understand that property is a bundle of rights courts choose to recognize, not a thing that simply exists.

What did Moore v. Regents hold?

In Moore v. Regents of the University of California, 51 Cal. 3d 120, 793 P.2d 479 (1990), the California Supreme Court held that a patient does not retain a property interest in cells removed from his body, and so cannot maintain a claim for conversion when physicians and researchers use those cells to create a valuable, patented cell line. The court simultaneously held that Moore could proceed on theories of breach of fiduciary duty and lack of informed consent, because a physician who has a personal research or economic interest in a patient's tissue must disclose that interest before obtaining consent to treatment. In short: no property claim, but a real claim rooted in the fiduciary duties a doctor owes a patient.

The facts

John Moore was diagnosed with hairy-cell leukemia and treated at the UCLA Medical Center by Dr. David Golde. In the course of treatment, Golde recommended and performed a splenectomy (removal of Moore's spleen). What Moore did not know was that Golde and the University had recognized that Moore's cells were unusually valuable — his diseased blood overproduced certain proteins useful for research. Over several years, Golde repeatedly called Moore back to Los Angeles from Seattle, telling him the follow-up visits were necessary for his health, and withdrew blood, bone marrow, and other samples.

In fact, Golde and researcher Shirley Quan used Moore's cells to establish a "cell line" — a self-perpetuating culture of his cells. The Regents patented the cell line in 1984, listing Golde and Quan as inventors, and entered into commercial agreements potentially worth millions of dollars. Moore was never told, never consented to this use, and received no share of the profits. When he learned the truth, he sued.

Procedural history

Moore brought thirteen causes of action, but the two that mattered for the appeal were conversion and claims based on lack of informed consent / breach of fiduciary duty. The trial court sustained the defendants' demurrer, effectively dismissing the case. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding Moore had stated a conversion claim. The California Supreme Court granted review and issued the definitive opinion, reversing on conversion but allowing the fiduciary-duty and informed-consent claims to proceed. Because the case came up on demurrer, the court assumed Moore's factual allegations were true and decided only whether they stated a legal claim.

The issue

The central question: Does a person retain a sufficient ownership or possessory interest in his own excised cells to support a cause of action for conversion when those cells are used, without his consent, for profitable research? A secondary issue: does a physician's failure to disclose his research and economic interests in a patient's tissue give rise to a claim for breach of fiduciary duty or lack of informed consent?

Holding and rule

The court held, in the part that goes straight into your outline: Moore had no property interest in his cells after they were removed, so he could not sue for conversion. Conversion is a strict-liability tort protecting against interference with personal property; because Moore did not retain ownership of the excised cells, there was nothing for the defendants to "convert."

But the court also held: A physician who is seeking a patient's consent for a medical procedure must disclose personal interests unrelated to the patient's health — whether research or economic — that may affect the physician's professional judgment. Failure to do so supports claims for breach of fiduciary duty and lack of informed consent. So Moore's remedy survived; it just came from the law of the doctor-patient relationship, not from property law.

The court's reasoning

The majority (Justice Panelli) declined to extend conversion to excised human cells for three main reasons, and the structure of that reasoning is what your professor will push on:

1. No existing law recognized the property interest. The court found that no prior California case had held a person retains ownership of cells once removed. It also noted that the patented cell line was factually and legally distinct from Moore's original cells — the invention was the product of the researchers' effort and skill, and patent law itself gave them rights in it. Moore's raw cells were not the same thing as the engineered cell line.

2. Statutes limited any continuing interest. The court pointed to California statutes governing the disposal of surgically removed body parts, reasoning that these laws drastically limited any expectation that a patient retains ownership rights in excised tissue.

3. Policy — the big one. The court was openly worried that recognizing a property/conversion claim would chill medical research. Conversion is strict liability, so every researcher who touched a cell sample down a long supply chain could be liable, even innocent parties. The court thought this threat would hobble socially valuable biotechnology and, functionally, create a market in human tissue. It preferred to leave the question to the legislature, which could balance the competing interests with a scalpel rather than the blunt instrument of conversion.

Crucially, the court reasoned that the fiduciary-duty and informed-consent theories already protect the interest Moore actually cared about — the right to make an informed decision about his own body and to know what his doctor was really doing. So the patient is not left remediless; he just doesn't get to sue on a theory that would hold the entire research industry strictly liable.

Concurrence (Justice Arabian): wrote separately to emphasize the moral discomfort of treating the human body as a commodity — he found the idea that a person could sell his body parts "philosophically" troubling and thought the legislature, not the courts, should decide.

Dissent (Justice Mosk) — know this one. Mosk argued forcefully that Moore should have a property interest in his own body. He rejected the idea that property is all-or-nothing; property is a bundle of rights, and even a limited right (say, the right to share in profits, or to refuse a particular use) is still a property right. He saw the majority's result as fundamentally unjust: everyone in the chain — the doctors, the university, the biotech company — profited enormously from Moore's body except Moore himself. To Mosk, the majority let the researchers keep the fruit of a wrong. He also doubted the informed-consent theory would give Moore a real remedy in practice.

Why Moore v. Regents matters

Moore is the case Property professors use to make you confront what "property" actually is. It is not really about spleens; it's about the fact that property is a legal conclusion, not a natural fact — courts decide what interests count as property based on policy, precedent, and consequences. The case sits in the introductory "what is property?" or "the right to exclude / bundle of rights" unit, usually alongside cases about wild animals, found objects, and the right to publicity. It's also a bridge to Torts (conversion, fiduciary duty) and to bioethics debates about ownership of the body, genetic material, and organs.

The through-line: Moore lost his property claim but won the recognition that he had a relational right — his doctor owed him honesty. That split result is the whole point.

Cold-call prep: the questions you'll actually get

Professors love this case because it has a clean tension. Here's how to survive the Socratic sequence:

"What did Moore want, and why couldn't he get it through conversion?" — Moore wanted a share of the profits from the cell line. He couldn't get it through conversion because conversion requires an ownership/possessory interest in the property, and the court held he lost any property interest in his cells when they were removed.

"Why did the court refuse to recognize a property interest? Give me the reasons." — Three: (1) no prior law recognized it and the patented cell line was legally distinct from his raw cells; (2) statutes on disposal of body parts cut against any retained ownership; (3) policy — extending strict-liability conversion would chill research and effectively commodify the body, a job for the legislature.

"If Moore had no property claim, does he walk away with nothing?" — No. The court allowed breach of fiduciary duty and lack of informed consent, because Golde failed to disclose his research and financial interests. That's the safety valve.

"What's the difference between the two remedies, and why does it matter?" — Conversion is strict liability and reaches everyone in the chain; the fiduciary/consent claims target only the doctor who breached a duty and require proving that disclosure would have changed the patient's decision. The court deliberately chose the narrower tool.

"What would Justice Mosk say?" — He'd say property is a bundle of rights, so even a partial interest counts as property; the majority let everyone profit off Moore's body except Moore, which is unjust, and the informed-consent remedy is illusory in practice.

The trap: Do not say Moore lost entirely. He lost the conversion claim but the fiduciary-duty and informed-consent claims survived. And do not confuse the raw cells with the patented cell line — the court treated them as distinct, and that distinction is doing real work in the reasoning.

On the exam

Moore shows up two ways. First, in a doctrinal question asking "is X property?" — the exam gives you a novel intangible or bodily interest (genetic data, a dead relative's tissue, a social-media following) and wants you to argue both sides: the majority's policy-driven refusal to recognize new property vs. Mosk's bundle-of-rights view that even limited interests count. Cite Moore for the proposition that courts decide what property is on policy grounds, and that a lost property claim doesn't mean a lost remedy.

Second, in an issue-spotter where a party is deprived of something valuable derived from their body or effort. The strong answer spots both tracks: (1) a conversion claim that probably fails under Moore if there's no retained ownership, and (2) an alternative relational claim (fiduciary duty, informed consent, unjust enrichment) that may succeed. Students who only argue conversion lose points; the whole lesson of Moore is that the property label is not the only route to a remedy. Note the split of authority too — other states and later cases have treated body tissue differently, so a great answer flags that Moore is a policy choice, not a universal rule.

Related cases

International News Service v. Associated Press — recognizing a quasi-property right in "hot news," another example of courts inventing property based on policy. Pierson v. Post and the wild-animal cases — property by capture, the classic "what counts as possession" material. Jacque v. Steenberg Homes — the right to exclude as the core of property. Depending on your casebook, Moore also travels with right-of-publicity cases and later organ/tissue disputes that reach different results, illustrating the jurisdictional split.