## Facts

- James Richards suffered from end-stage renal disease and relied on frequent dialysis treatments that were painful and caused significant side effects.
- Richards alleged a kidney transplant would materially extend his life expectancy compared to continued dialysis and that longer time on dialysis reduced transplant success.
- Richards had no available family donor and expected a multi-year wait for a transplant through ordinary allocation channels.
- Richards’s family was willing to pay at least $50,000 to incentivize a kidney donation, but federal law criminalizes the knowing transfer, receipt, or acquisition of a human organ for “valuable consideration” for use in transplantation.
- Richards also asserted the law prevented him from selling his organs after death and leaving the proceeds to his estate.
- Richards sued the Attorney General in his official capacity, challenging the federal organ-sale prohibition on Fifth Amendment grounds and seeking a declaration that the statute would not apply to an organ purchase from a person in Massachusetts.

## Issues

1. Whether the federal prohibition on compensated organ transfers violates substantive due process by infringing a fundamental right to purchase a kidney for transplantation.
2. Whether the prohibition effects an unconstitutional taking without just compensation by barring the sale of one’s organs, including after death.
3. Whether the court could issue the requested declaratory judgment given Article III limits and the plaintiff’s failure to respond to an order to show cause.

## Decision

- The court granted the government’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion and dismissed the substantive due process claim.
- The court dismissed the takings claim for failure to allege a cognizable property interest and because the statute functions as a general regulation rather than an appropriation.
- The court ordered the plaintiff to show cause why the declaratory-relief request should not be dismissed as hypothetical and nonspecific.
- After the plaintiff failed to respond by the deadline, the court dismissed the declaratory-relief claim for failure to prosecute and failure to comply with the court’s order, and the action was fully dismissed.

## Legal Principles

- A claimed fundamental right under substantive due process must be deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition and implicit in ordered liberty; a claimed right to purchase a human organ for transplantation is not treated as fundamental.
- When no fundamental right is implicated, a federal statute regulating private conduct is reviewed under rational-basis scrutiny and is upheld if rationally related to any legitimate governmental interest.
- Preventing exploitation of vulnerable persons, protecting human dignity, and regulating health-and-safety risks in organ procurement are legitimate governmental interests that can support a ban on organ sales under rational-basis review.
- A Takings Clause claim requires a recognized property interest derived from independent sources such as state law; absent a legally cognizable property interest in selling human organs, a takings claim fails at the threshold.
- Declaratory relief requires an actual case or controversy; requests framed in hypothetical, nonspecific terms may be nonjusticiable.
- A court may dismiss remaining claims for failure to prosecute or failure to comply with court orders when a party ignores an order to show cause and related deadlines.

## Conclusion

The court rejected constitutional challenges to the federal ban on compensated organ transfers, holding that there is no fundamental right to buy a kidney and no recognized property interest supporting a takings theory, and it dismissed the remaining request for declaratory relief after the plaintiff failed to respond to an order to show cause.


Richards v. Holder, No. 13-13195-LTS, 2014 WL 2805280 (D. Mass. June 19, 2014)