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After 17-year-old Jesse Shipley was killed in an automobile accident in January 2005, his father, Andre Shipley, ordered the medical examiner to make the autopsy "nice and clean."
However, unknown to his family, the ME's Office returned Jesse's body without his brain and stored it for further study. A couple months later, once Shipley's parents cremated him, the adolescent's classmates visited the city mortuary and discovered a jar labelled with the name of the boy and his preserved brain floating inside, awaiting examination by a neuropathologist.
Jesse Shipley brain theft
According to the Shipleys' lawyer, Marvin Ben Aron, not the brain but also parts of the liver, spleen, and testes were returned and buried alongside their son's body in a little casket. He claims that handling the body parts was a particularly traumatic experience for the family.
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After receiving a lawsuit for psychological harm, the municipality is standing firm: the nearest of kin should not be notified of organ removal for diagnostic, informative, quality improvement, or research purposes. Most postmortem consent forms support this statement.
Jesse Shipley's parents filed a lawsuit against the City of New York as well as the Medical Examiner's Office. They demanded damages for the improper removal of Jesse's brain.
The City of New York attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing that the human brain was maintained for different scientific purposes. The motion was dismissed by the judge who presided over the case.
Jesse Shipley's parents filed a lawsuit against the City of New York as well as the Medical Examiner's Office. They demanded damages for the improper removal of Jesse's brain. The City of New York attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing that the human brain was maintained for different scientific purposes. The motion was dismissed by the judge who presided over the case.
The majority of the judges ruled that the Shipley family did not have a claim to their son's brain or to be aware that it was absent when the physician who examined him delivered his body.
The court accepted that New York maintained a common law "right of sepulcher"—that is, the right to immediate custody of a decedent's body for preservation and burial. The court determined that the right to a sepulchre applies solely to the corpse itself, not to the tissues or organs stored within it.
Shannon Shipley earlier settled an independent personal injury complaint for $60,000 with both the owners and riders of the two cars. We offer our deepest condolences to Jesse Shipley's family.
