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Lawsuits frozen in time

Published 2:03 pm Saturday, May 15, 2010

They canceled “Law &Order,” but we’re still collecting cases for the Frivolous Lawsuits Unit spin-off show:

  • “Iowa court: Exhume body so head can be frozen”: The siblings of a man who died more than a year ago must exhume his body so his head can be cut off and cryogenically frozen, the Associated Press reported.

    In 2004, Orville Richardson paid Alcor Life Extension Foundation $53,500 to have his head placed in cryonic suspension after his death. When he died at age 81 in 2009, his brother and sister had him buried instead, having told him earlier they would not comply with his plan, court records show.

    Alcor learned of Richardson’s death two months later, when his brother asked for the $53,500 back.

    Instead of just refusing to refund the money (it was the family’s fault the company couldn’t keep its end of the bargain), Alcor sued to exhume the body. The request was denied, but the Iowa Court of Appeals reversed the decision Wednesday. It said the lower court should have granted Alcor’s request because the siblings ignored their brother’s request.

    The deadline on that request, however, had long expired.

    As AP reported: “It was unclear what condition the body would be in. According to Alcor, the cryonics process should begin within the first two minutes after a heart stops, and preferably within the first 15 minutes.”

    So the “cryonics process” should start two minutes after a heart stops, but Alcor wants to dig up a decaying body? Who knew contract law could be so…creepy.

    Alcor’s Web site states: “The purpose of cryonics is to maintain life, not reverse death.”

    We’re not cryonicologists, or appeals court judges, but something is rotten in the state of Cryonville.

  • To follow up a previous frivolous lawsuit: An elderly Connecticut woman doesn’t have to share her half of $500,000 Powerball winnings with the sister who sued her over it, AP reported.

    Rose Bakaysa, 87, and Theresa Sokaitis, 84, — onetime inseparable gambling pals — have fought over the money in court since 2005, shortly after Bakaysa and their brother won the jackpot.

    A Superior Court judge ruled that a notarized 10-year-old contract between the women to split all gambling profits was invalidated in 2004 during a sisterly spat.

    Thanks for the heart-warming tale, ladies. Now all the sisters need do is contact Alcor Life Extension Foundation to have their heads cryopreserved so they can argue for all eternity:

    Bakaysa: I wrote you out of my will, too.

    Sokaitis: Mom always liked me best.

    Bakaysa: Want to bet on the chances that someone has seen fit to leave our bickering heads alone together forever?

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