A Triumph for Justice, 0620 COBJ, Vol. 49, No. 6 Pg. 54
| Position | Vol. 49, 6 [Page 54] |
BAR NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Burg Simpson's Win in the Body Parts Case
Michael Burg is one of America's leading trial lawyers, the best-selling author of Trial By Fire,[1] a legal expert, and the founding shareholder of Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh & Jardine. A legal champion for victims of corporate and individual malfeasance, negligence, overreach, and abuse, Burg has successfully litigated some of the country's most high-profile cases of the past four decades. Under his leadership, Burg Simpson has expanded to more than 70 attorneys across seven cities. The firm is a national leader in mass tort and class action litigation and has won more than SI billion in verdicts, judgments, and settlements on behalf of its clients.
During his 43-year career, Burg has represented thousands of individuals and helped their families overcome catastrophic injuries and immense hardship. He has taken on big pharma in multiple dangerous drug mass tort cases, including Fen-Phen, Yaz/Yasmin, Ortho Evra, and Pradaxa. Burg stood up to corporate greed fighting against UBS for selling risky mortgages to investors, creating the blueprint for many similar actions by states, municipalities, government regulators, and other aggrieved investors.
In 2019, Burg secured a $58.5 million verdict in compensatory and punitive damage for families who had donated bodies of their deceased loved ones to the Biological Resource Center (BRC). He represented the victims of a scheme to illegally sell parts of donated bodies that were intended for scientific and medical education and research. The verdict is one of the largest civil case results in Arizona history and the subject of this month’s Q&A with Burg
Before you took this case, were you aware of the magnitude of the illicit body broker industry in the United States?
Before I agreed to represent my clients in the case against the BRC, in what the national media has called the “Body Parts Case,” I was not aware of a body parts industry that profited from selling and trafficking human body parts without family consent. What the BRC did is akin to body-snatching, but without the effort of unearthing the human remains.
The descendants and families of the deceased donated the bodies of their loved ones based on misrepresentations that the remains would be used solely for medical or...
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