A woman has filed for divorce, and the man who gave her his kidney has demanded that she return it or pay $1.5 million.
He said she was having an affair.
Although getting a divorce can be a challenging and unpleasant procedure, one man’s wife filing for divorce elevated the situation to a completely new level.
You can anticipate that issues like the marital residence or child custody will play a major role in the subsequent court processes when things get heated during a divorce.
For one man, though, things went much farther than this since, presumably when things were going a little better before the divorce, he had donated his wife a kidney.
It’s a touching gesture, one which you might think would exemplify love and commitment.
But Dr Richard Batista rather spoiled the gift when he demanded that his wife, Dawnell, either return the kidney or pay him $1.5 million after she filed for divorce.
The couple tied the knot back in 1990 and had three children together.
Dr Batista claimed that their marriage had already been on the rocks due to his wife’s ongoing medical issues.
After she had two failed kidney transplants, he decided that he would donate one of his kidneys to save both her life and their marriage in 2001.
He told reporters at the time: “My first priority was to save her life. The second bonus was to turn the marriage around.”
But it seems that while the procedure succeeded in saving Dawnell’s life, the ‘bonus’ was not quite so forthcoming, and she filed for divorce in 2005.
Dr Batista accused her of having an affair and responded by including a demand for his donated kidney or compensation of $1.5 million as part of the settlement in an extraordinary request.
His lawyer, Dominic Barbara, said his client was ‘asking for the value of the kidney’ that he gave Dawnell.
