$58.5 Million Verdict for Families Whose Donated Relatives Were Sold by Body Broker

The Biological Resource Center of Arizona held itself out as a legitimate body-donation facility. Families signed consent forms under the understanding that donated remains would advance medical research. What happened instead was documented in grim detail after a January 2014 FBI raid: agents found approximately ten tons of frozen human remains, including 281 heads, 337 legs, and 97 spines, stored in buckets, coolers, and freezers. Some bodies had been sutured together from mismatched parts. Others had been sold abroad or used as blast-test subjects in military experiments.

Stephen Gore, the center's owner, pleaded guilty in 2015 to operating an illegal enterprise. He received one year of deferred prison time and four years of probation. Families learned of the deception only after the criminal investigation went public, many discovering through news reports how their loved ones' remains had actually been used.

Twenty-one families brought civil claims to trial in Maricopa County Superior Court before Judge Timothy Thomason. The trial began October 24, 2019. Burg Simpson attorneys Michael Burg, David TeSelle, Holly Kammerer, and Paul Friedman represented the plaintiffs, arguing that Gore and the BRC had obtained consent through deliberate fraud and caused deep emotional harm to families who had trusted the facility with their most personal loss.

Jurors returned a verdict on November 19, 2019, awarding $8.5 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages, for a total of $58.5 million. Ten of the twenty-one plaintiffs prevailed; the eleven who did not had not testified during trial. Individual awards included $6.5 million for a woman whose son's remains were sold for military testing and $5.5 million for a plaintiff who later became an advocate for stricter government oversight of the body-donation industry.

The defense challenged the punitive award as unconstitutionally excessive, and the trial court reduced the punitive damages to $8.5 million, cutting the total judgment to about $17 million. On appeal, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled in February 2022 that the trial court had lacked jurisdiction to modify the verdict and ordered the full $58.5 million judgment reinstated in Aloia v. Gore.