UAB Health
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – An Alabama family has lost much of their fight against a university hospital system after it removed and kept a man’s organs, including his brain, following an autopsy.
The state Supreme Court on Jan. 30 ruled against Darlene Singleton in her lawsuit against the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation. Her husband Charles died in November 2021 in an Alabama prison, but by the time his body was returned for a funeral service, it was missing its organs.
But the suit wasn’t filed until April 2024, outside of a two-year statute of limitations. Singleton said a six-year window for their “conversion” claim applied. Conversion deals with the withholding of someone’s personal property, and UAB Health argued body parts aren’t included.
“(A)lthough the Singleton family alleged generally that the petitioners ‘had the audacity to ransack [Singleton’s] body and convert its parts for their own selfish gain,’ the complaint does not identify a specific use of Singleton’s organs that the Singleton family alleges profited the petitioners in anyway,” Justice Tommy Bryan wrote.
Charles Singleton was incarcerated in Marion County until his death at Regional One Health in Memphis. The family expressed its desire to a prison chaplain to make their own burial arrangements.
But since Singleton was an inmate, the chaplain said an autopsy was required. It was conducted by UAB Health the next day on Nov. 3, 2021.
The director of a funeral home said two days later it would be difficult to prepare Singleton’s body for a traditional viewing because of its state of decomposition. He told the Singletons there were no organs in the body, including his brain.
The ensuing lawsuit claimed UAB Health gave the family the runaround when they called about retrieving the organs. Their case was consolidated with five others.
In hoping to keep the case alive, the Singletons argued continued possession of Charles’ organs kept the statute of limitations from expiring. They cited a case defining a continuous tort as “a defendant’s repeated wrongs to the plaintiff.”
But the Supreme Court found a “single act followed by multiple consequences” is not a continuous tort. And the complaint did not go allege conduct past Nov. 6, 2021.
“Although the Singleton family asserts in their answer that the petitioners have repeatedly refused requests that they return Singleton’s organs and that the petitioners continue to use Singleton’s organs for their own benefit and profit, the Singleton family does not demonstrate that it made any such allegations in the complaint,” Justice Bryan wrote.
The ruling dismisses all claims except one made under the Alabama Uniform Anatomical Gift Act.
