Love might make people give their hearts away, but Dr. Richard Batista gave his kidney, too. The New York surgeon donated one of his kidneys to his wife Dawnell in 2001 after hers began to fail. For a while, it worked like a combination medical miracle and marital reset. However, four years later the 11-year marriage collapsed, and the kidney became an exhibit in one of the strangest divorce cases the courts had ever seen. By July 2025, Dawnell had filed for divorce, prompting Richard to file a counterclaim asking for either his kidney back or $1.5 million in compensation. The case went before the Nassau County Supreme Court and soon became a legal circus. Richard revealed that his wife had been having an affair that started a mere 18 months after she received his kidney donation. His lawyer argued that the kidney should be considered marital property. Dawnell’s attorney argued that you can’t put a price on an organ, nor can you repossess it. In 2009, the court ruled that a human organ cannot be treated as property under New York law, which bans buying or selling body parts. The court considered the kidney to belong to Dawnell now, since taking it out would either send her to dialysis or result in her death. So, Richard went home empty-handed and minus a kidney.
