Orville Richardson has been dead for 15 months. But in what might seem like a pointless decision, the Iowa Court of Appeals has ordered his siblings to make his head available for cryonic preservation.

Container for storing Alcor "neuropatients"

The siblings — brother David Richardson and sister Darlene Broeker — argued that exhuming Orville and handing his remains over to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation of Scottsdale, Ariz., would be meaningless since they have deteriorated too much for cryonic preservation to be successful. He died in February 2009 at 81.

According to Alcor, cryogenic freezing procedures should ideally begin within the first one or two minutes after the heart stops, and preferably within 15 minutes. The foundation offers its “patients,” who include baseball legend Ted Williams, the hope that scientists of the future will be able to bring them back to life.

But the Iowa Court of Appeals last week granted Alcor's request for an injunction compelling Orville Richardson's relatives to approve his disinterment, saying the “practical difficulties” in the case would not have existed if they had not gone against his wish to be cryonically preserved.

“It seems unfair and inequitable, in our view, for David and Darlene to rely on obstacles to injunctive relief that exist only because of their own efforts to create a fait accompli,” Judge Edward Mansfield wrote in the opinion.

The court also said Orville Richardson had made a valid "gift” under the Revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (RUAGA) even though he paid Alcor for its cryonic services.

Richardson, who worked as a pharmacist, selected “neurosuspension” — the removal and preservation of his head and brain — as his ticket to immortality. He signed documents in December 2004 authorizing Alcor to take possession of his remains upon his death and paid a lifetime membership fee of $53,500.

David Richardson and Broeker, the co-administrators of his estate, buried all of him in a Burlington, Iowa, cemetery. They had tried to talk him out of his plan while he was alive and — two months after his death — requested a refund of his membership fee from Alcor.

Orville Richardson's demise was news to Alcor, which promptly questioned why it hadn't been notified in a timely manner and then petitioned in probate court for access to his remains.

In July 2009, Des Moines County District Court Judge John G. Linn denied the request, finding that Alcor did not qualify as a “designee” of Richardson's remains under Iowa's Final Disposition Act. “Iowa law vested David and Darlene the right to control disposition of Orville's remains,” he concluded.

The appeals court said Linn had erred, in part because “the rights of Alcor as a donee of an anatomical gift under the RUAGA are superior to David and Darlene‘s dispositional rights conferred by the Final Disposition Act.”

Mansfield concluded:

David and Darlene decided to bury Orville despite knowledge he had made different arrangements for his remains. This in our view tips the equities further in Alcor‘s favor. Had David and Darlene notified Alcor at the time of Orville‘s death, and allowed this dispute to be resolved at that time, the practical difficulties in this case would not exist.

Attorneys for Alcor have said Orville Richardson donated his remains “not only in the hope of potential revival, but also to prove and perfect the process” of cryonic suspension. Mansfield declined to get involved in what he called “scientific and philosophical judgments.”

But Alcor may not only be motivated by science. With a court now having found that the equities are so much in Alcor's favor, Orville Richardson's siblings can hardly argue that they should get his money back.

By Matthew Heller
5/17/09