NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 29 – The High Court has directed Mater Hospital to release the body of Caroline Nthangu Tito after the facility detained her remains for nearly two months over an unpaid medical bill of Sh3,315,784.
Delivering judgment on 23 September 2025, Justice Prof. Nixon Sifuna found the hospital’s action unlawful, unconstitutional and contrary to public policy, saying there is no legal basis in Kenya for a hospital to assert a lien over a corpse.
The judge said detaining bodies to compel payment is an affront to human dignity and must stop.
The case was brought by the deceased’s sons, Moses Mutua and his brother both college students who told the court they were orphaned and dependent on their mother after the earlier death of their father.
Court records show Mrs. Tito was admitted to Mater on 22 May 2025 and died on 2 August 2025 after more than two months of treatment.
Following her death the hospital presented the family with a bill of Sh3,315,784 and demanded full settlement before releasing the body. Daily mortuary charges of Ksh 2,000 were also being levied.
IJustice Sifuna said medical and mortuary debts are civil claims and must be recovered through ordinary legal processes not by holding on to a body.
“There is no property in a dead body, and correspondingly there cannot be a right of lien on it,” he stated.
The court granted a mandatory injunction ordering Mater Hospital to hand over Mrs. Tito’s remains to her sons, on condition that they pay only the accumulated mortuary fees.
The remainder of the hospital bill, the judge held, may be pursued as an ordinary civil debt through the courts. Each party was ordered to bear its own legal costs.
