Harvard University can be sued by families alleging it mishandled the bodies of loved ones donated to its medical school and whose parts were then sold on the black market by the former manager of its morgue, Massachusetts’ top court ruled on Monday.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held, that a trial court judge wrongly dismissed lawsuits seeking to hold Harvard responsible for ex-morgue manager Cedric Lodge’s “macabre scheme” to dissect, steal and sell parts of cadavers used by the medical school for research.
Justice Scott Kafker, writing for a unanimous court, said the plaintiffs sufficiently alleged Harvard failed to act in good faith in handling the bodies, whose “horrific and undignified treatment continued for years.”
“It had a legal obligation to provide for the dignified treatment and disposal of the donated human remains, and failed miserably in this regard, as Harvard itself recognised,” Kafker wrote.
The court also revived claims against the managing director of Harvard’s anatomical gift program.
Harvard Medical School said in a statement that Lodge’s actions were “abhorrent and inconsistent with the standards and values that Harvard, our anatomical donors, and their loved ones expect and deserve.”
Lodge is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in May to transporting stolen goods across state lines.
Prosecutors said he began his scheme in 2018, stealing parts from cadavers, including heads, brains, skin and organs and transporting them from Harvard’s morgue in Boston to his home in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he and his wife sold them.
In 12 lawsuits, 47 relatives of individuals whose bodies were donated to Harvard accused the school of negligence, contending it turned a blind eye to Lodge’s years-long misconduct until he was indicted in 2023.
A judge last year concluded Harvard enjoyed broad immunity from liability so long as it attempted in good faith to comply with the state’s Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, which governs the donation of human bodies for research and education.
But Kafker said the lawsuits adequately alleged Harvard did not comply with the law, citing a failure to put systems in place that could have prevented Lodge from dismembering donated bodies; bringing people into the morgue to buy body parts; and taking out cadaver parts.
Jeffrey Catalano, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, welcomed the ruling, saying his clients “feel that their right to get additional answers as to how and why this happened on Harvard’s property for so long has been vindicated.”
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