Harvard Hit with Class Action After Former Morgue Manager Indicted for Selling Cadaver Body Parts [UPDATE]

A proposed class action alleges Harvard University was negligent in failing to prevent a former morgue manager from mishandling and selling the body parts of cadavers donated to the Ivy League heavyweight’s medical school.

The 12-page lawsuit against the university and former Harvard Medical School morgue manager Cedric Lodge stresses that Harvard had a duty of care to hire, train and supervise someone trustworthy enough to handle donated cadavers with decency and dignity.

The suit alleges Lodge, who, along with his wife and several others, was indicted by federal prosecutors earlier this month for the theft and sale of human body parts, illegally and over the course of at least five years “disturbed, mishandled, displayed, dissected and/or sold” hundreds of body parts from donated cadavers, including, according to media reports, heads, skins, brains and bones.

According to the complaint, the proposed class likely includes the family members of 350 to 400 individuals who donated their bodies to Harvard Medical School.

“Families who lose loved ones find solace in temporarily entrusting the bodies of their loved ones to an institution such as Harvard Medical School with the goal of furthering academic and medical research,” the filing says. “The actions of the Harvard Medical School morgue manager in mishandling and selling the body parts of cadavers donated to the school was a reprehensible tragedy that should have never happened.”

Lodge sold cadaver parts in person, online, suit says

Cadavers can be voluntarily donated to Harvard Medical School by individuals who sign an agreement with the institution through its Anatomical Gifts Program, the suit explains. In order for Harvard to receive a decedent’s body for medical research, the school must ensure that the body will be used only for the promotion of anatomical science in a way that would “not outrage public feeling” and will either be returned to the family or “decently buried or cremated” after its use for medical research and education is finished, the complaint shares.

The lawsuit says that a cadaver, after being used for educational, teaching or research purposes by Harvard Medical School, is stored at an onsite morgue prior to reaching its final disposition. Per the case, Lodge, in the course of his employment with the school, had access to the Harvard Medical School morgue, the cadavers stored therein and a database in which the identities of donated cadavers are documented for tracking purposes.

According to the lawsuit, Lodge, from at least 2018 through March 2023, used his access to the Harvard Medical School morgue to allow unauthorized third parties to enter the morgue and view donated cadavers for the purpose of selecting body parts to purchase. Other times, Lodge took body parts back to his Goffstown, New Hampshire, home where he and his wife, Denise, would offer them for sale via text messages and social media, news reports say.

Lodge, who Harvard officials said in a statement titled “An abhorrent betrayal” was fired on May 6, sold the body parts of donated cadavers to third parties “in person and online and then shipped them to various buyers in the United States,” the complaint alleges. According to prosecutors, Lodge and those indicted with him were part of a nationwide network dealing in the purchase and sale of remains stolen from Harvard Medical School and an Arkansas mortuary.

The suit charges that Harvard’s negligence allowed Lodge to continue his body part-selling scheme for years and has caused proposed class members to suffer “severe emotional distress.” Massachusetts law recognizes emotional distress as “the natural and proximate result of knowing that the remains of a deceased family member have not been preserved as the family desired,” the case relays.

The lawsuit charges that Harvard is responsible for the handling of donated cadavers not only on moral and ethical grounds but on a fiduciary basis.

“Family members of the decedents are entitled to the right to bury their loved ones in a manner imbued with decency,” the lawsuit states. “When families of deceased are denied that right when the bodies of their loved ones were dismembered, mishandled, and sold to third parties, they are entitled to compensation for the severe emotional distressed caused as a result of this inexcusable negligence and tortious interference with a dead body.”

The suit was filed on June 16 in Suffolk Superior Court by the biological son of a woman who agreed to temporarily donate her body to Harvard Medical School to “further the study of science and medicine.” The case says the plaintiff’s mother’s body was one of the many cadavers negligently mishandled by Lodge and casts doubt on whether the cremated ashes returned to her surviving family in April 2021 – more than two years after her death in February 2019 – were really hers.

Harvard calls body parts theft “morally reprehensible”

In a statement, Harvard officials called Lodge’s alleged actions “morally reprehensible” and a betrayal of Harvard Medical School and those who “altruistically chose to will their bodies to HMS” to further medical education and research. The school has established online resources for donor families and next of kin and provided answers to frequently asked questions about the federal investigation.

Who’s covered by the lawsuit?

The case looks to represent all individuals whose family members donated their deceased bodies to Harvard and Harvard Medical School for medical research and academic study and whose cadavers were mishandled, dissected and/or sold by Lodge.

How do I get involved in a class action?

There’s usually nothing you need to do to join or sign up for a class action case when it is initially filed. It’s generally only if and when a suit settles that the people covered by the lawsuit, called class members, might need to act. This can involve filling out and filing a claim form online or by mail.

In the event of a settlement, the class members may receive notice about the deal and their legal options. Class actions, however, can take years to resolve.

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