Lawsuits towards Harvard in relation to a macabre scheme that led human physique components to be bought out of the morgue for a number of years could transfer ahead, the Supreme Judicial Court docket dominated Monday.
“Harvard’s extraordinary failure to adequately supervise the morgue’s operations and properly protect the donated remains in its care exemplifies the kind of ‘peculiarly pervasive noncompliance’ we have said can demonstrate a lack of good faith,” the SJC ruling states.
A Superior Court docket decide dismissed lawsuits associated to the scheme, discovering Harvard and the sued events acted legally inside a “good faith” protection.
The SJC partially overturned the choice Monday, permitting fits towards each Harvard and the managing director of the Medical Faculty Anatomical Reward Program Mark Cicchetti however not the supervisor of the Anatomical Reward Program.
“In a macabre scheme spanning several years, Cedric Lodge, the person responsible for the care of cadavers at the Harvard Medical School morgue, dissected, stole, and sold parts of the bodies of individuals who donated their remains for research purposes,” the SJC states.
After a federal felony indictment was unsealed, “forty-seven plaintiffs, all relatives of individuals whose remains were potentially mishandled and sold,” filed lawsuits towards the college and officers answerable for this system.
The lawsuits come after former Harvard Medical Faculty morgue supervisor Cedric Lodge pleaded responsible to interstate transport of stolen human stays in Could. Lodge, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, might resist 10 years in jail. His spouse Denise Lodge and two alleged coconspirators additionally face costs.
The theft and sale of human stays from the morgue, together with a mortuary in Arkansas, occurred from 2018 by way of March 2023, in response to the court docket. The stays donated to Harvard, together with palms, toes, spines, dissected faces and components of skulls, went out to a nationwide community of individuals in particular person and thru on-line gross sales.
Harvard has acknowledged the taking of parts of cadavers was performed with out authorities’ information or permission. Our bodies donated to the college by way of the AGP, run out of Harvard Medical Faculty for the reason that Nineteen Sixties, are usually used for analysis and academic functions and cremated, buried or returned to households after use.
Kinfolk of the useless impacted within the scheme introduced twelve lawsuits towards Harvard in 2023 and 4 naming Cicchetti, Lodge’s supervisor, additionally as a defendant. The lawsuits had been consolidated earlier than being dismissed and appealed within the SJC.
Whereas the scheme was ongoing, households’ lawsuits state Harvard ought to have been conscious of the shortcomings within the morgue’s operations and the college disregarded steerage from the American Affiliation of Anatomy.
“The families whose trust in Harvard was so betrayed are thankful for the Court’s careful attention to this important case,” stated John Morgan, founding father of Morgan & Morgan, and legal professional Kathryn Barnett. “Our clients deserve to have their day in court for what they suffered, and we look forward to finally getting some answers from Harvard about this alleged violation.”
One other legal professional for plaintiffs within the case referred to as the ruling a “major victory for the families who trusted Harvard with their loved ones’ final wishes.”
“The Supreme Judicial Court recognized that Harvard can’t hide behind immunity when its failure to supervise created the conditions for this appalling abuse,” stated legal professional Sean Flaherty, a managing companion of Keches Legislation Group.
In its resolution, the SJC states the 2 defendants are usually not shielded from authorized motion by the protection they acted in good religion below the Uniform Anatomical Reward Act. The SJC famous although an identical incident of physique half theft in a UCLA morgue within the early 2000s, Harvard had “little to no controls in place to prevent this harm from occurring.”
Harvard “ignored or tolerated” purple flags, like Lodge’s “license plate describing himself as the ‘Grim-R[eaper],’ which revealed an unprofessional insensitivity given his position in a medical school morgue,” the ruling states.
“(Harvard) 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 recognized,” the SJC states. “Harvard also had a duty to oversee Lodge’s conduct and to place proper controls over the morgue itself –- both of which it allegedly disregarded for years.”
Officers from Harvard didn’t reply to a Herald request for remark.
Herald file photograph
The John Adams Courthouse in Boston, dwelling of the state’s Appeals Court docket and Supreme Judicial Court docket. (Employees Picture by Nicolaus Czarnecki)
Courtesy / Suffolk Superior Court docket submitting
Harvard Medical Faculty Anatomical Reward Program morgue worker Cedric Lodge. (Courtesy / Suffolk Superior Court docket submitting)
