Seattle judge dismisses most claims in brain-harvesting case

SEATTLE – A federal judge has dismissed all but one of the claims brought by a North Carolina woman who accused the medical examiner’s office here of harvesting her brother’s brain and other organs for research without permission.

Robinette Amaker, of Fayetteville, sued in 2005 – seven years after the fact – when she learned her brother’s brain, spleen, samples of his liver and other body parts had been provided to Stanley Medical Research Institute of Bethesda, Md.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman dismissed the claims Amaker brought against the King County Medical Examiner’s Office and Stanley Medical for interfering with a corpse, invasion of privacy and civil conspiracy. But the judge said she would consider whether Amaker can pursue a claim for violations of Washington’s Uniform Anatomical Gift Act.

“We’re disappointed, but she still hasn’t dismissed the case outright,” her attorney, Steve Bulzomi, said Monday.

Amaker’s brother, Bradley Gierlich, died in 1998 of a heroin overdose. At the time, the nonprofit Stanley foundation had given the medical examiner’s office a grant to harvest brains and other organs for research on mental illness. The foundation paid for a pathologist who worked in the office full time from 1995 to 2003.

During the course of the grant, the medical examiner’s office harvested 255 brains. County officials have said they have completed consent forms for all but two, including Gierlich’s.

Three families in Washington state have sued in King County Superior Court, alleging that they were misled into giving permission; they say they thought the medical examiner’s office would take only samples, not the entire brains. More than a dozen families in Maine have sued Stanley Medical and the former state funeral inspector on similar grounds.

In Gierlich’s case, associate medical examiner Sigmund Menchel said he tried to contact the next of kin – Gierlich’s father, Robert – but was unable to reach him. Instead, Menchel claimed that he spoke with Gierlich’s aunt, and the aunt said Robert would certainly consent.

In court papers the aunt insisted she neither gave permission nor suggested that Gierlich’s father would have done so. Robert Gierlich died in 2004.

The judge held that Amaker could not pursue a claim of interference with a corpse because Washington courts have not allowed such claims; that she could not prove invasion of privacy; and that the actions of the medical examiner’s office and Stanley Medical did not constitute a conspiracy, because there was no evidence that Stanley knew consent had not been obtained.

However, Pechman ruled that under the state’s Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, the medical examiner’s office had a duty to contact her for consent when Gierlich’s father could not be reached.

Pechman said it is not clear whether a lawsuit can be brought on that ground, and she asked lawyers for both sides to file briefs on the issue by Wednesday.

Grant Degginger, a lawyer representing the county and Stanley Medical, declined to comment.