In 2001, Dr. Richard Batista gave his wife the ultimate gift: his own kidney in a transplant operation that saved her life. Four years later, she wanted a divorce, so he wanted his kidney back. The court, obviously, didn’t like it.
Love might make people give their hearts away, but Richard Batista gave his kidney, too. A New York surgeon, Batista, donated one of his kidneys to his wife, Dawnell, in 2001 after hers began to fail. For a while, it worked like a medical miracle and a marital reset, as he wished. But soon, the 11-year marriage collapsed, and the kidney became an exhibit in one of the strangest divorce cases the courts had ever seen.
By July 2005, Dawnell had filed for divorce. But Richard was angry and hurt. On top of it, the divorce stretched on for four years, and he was “frustrated with the negotiations” (via News 18). So, he filed a counterclaim that stunned everyone. He asked either for the kidney back or for $1.5 million in “compensation.” He claimed that it was his “last resort” and that he “did not want to do this publicly.”
The case went before the Nassau County Supreme Court and soon became a legal circus. Richard revealed that his wife began having affairs “18 months to two years after receiving the kidney transplant.” His lawyer argued that the kidney should be considered marital property. While the general public was split on whether to sympathize with Richard or not, the laws weren’t really in his favor. Susan Moss, a Manhattan attorney, revealed:
“The good doctor is out of luck and out a kidney. This is similar to cases where a husband wants to be repaid for the cost of breast implants and the such. Our judges are not willing to value such assets, so to speak.” (via News 18)
Dawnell’s lawyers, on the other hand, fired back, saying that you can’t put a price on an organ. And even if you could, you definitely can’t repossess it. Given the moral notes attached to the case, the judge ultimately agreed with her side. So, in 2009, the court ruled that a human organ cannot be treated as property under New York law, which bans buying or selling body parts for “valuable consideration.” They said,
“The defendant’s effort to pursue and extract monetary compensation therefore not only runs afoul of the statutory prescription but conceivably may expose the defendant to criminal prosecution.”
The court considered the kidney to belong to Dawnell now, since taking it out would either send her to dialysis or result in her death. So, Richard had to go home empty-handed from the four-year-long proceeding. The case became a landmark in bioethics and is still widely discussed decades later.
