Earlier this year Cedric Lodge, former morgue director at Harvard Medical School, pleaded guilty to the interstate transport of stolen human remains. (See my post Harvard’s Former Morgue Manager Pleads Guilty to Selling Human Remains.)
Between 2018 and 2023 Lodge made a small fortune selling parts of donated cadavers on the black market.
Those acquiring the remains often had non-scientific, macabre intentions.
For instance, one purchaser took skin of a donated cadaver and tanned it into leather.
Another buyer paid Lodge $600 for two human faces.
While managing the morgue and conducting his ghoulish business, Lodge had a vanity license plate that read “Grim-R.”
Additionally, Lodge appears dressed as a Victorian-Era undertaker in his Facebook profile:
Unsurprisingly, the donors’ living relatives demanded redress from Harvard.
Forty-seven heirs filed a lawsuit against Harvard in Suffolk Superior Court.
Their complaint claims that Harvard failed to
effectively screen, monitor, and supervise their employee to protect the dignity and integrity of donated human remains and ensure those remains were utilized for the exclusive purposes for which they were donated, namely research and medical training. As a direct result of Harvard’s failures, the Plaintiff and many other families have been confronted with the almost incomprehensible prospect that their loved ones’ remains were sold as commodities, to be traded, displayed and in some cases converted into jewelry, dolls and other common products.
A superior court judge dismissed the lawsuit, reasoning that Harvard was entitled to the “good faith” defense under the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act.
The applicable section of that statute says,
A person who acts in accordance with this chapter or with the applicable anatomical gift law of another state or who attempts in good faith to do so, shall not be liable for the act in a civil action, criminal prosecution or administrative proceeding.
The plaintiffs appealed the ruling and yesterday the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) reversed the dismissal.
The lawsuit can proceed against Harvard, according to the justices.
In their written opinion, the justices found that
the facts alleged constitute “peculiarly pervasive noncompliance” with the act. Instead of the dignified treatment and disposal of human remains required by the act, the donors’ remains were ghoulishly dismembered and sold for profit under the most horrifying of circumstances. This horrific and undignified treatment continued for years and involved numerous donors. Although we focus our inquiry on Harvard’s conduct, Lodge’s misdeeds are relevant insofar as they demonstrate where Harvard failed to act in good faith in operating and overseeing the morgue. Despite the risk of harm being known to Harvard, as similar misconduct had previously occurred in a strikingly similar fashion in another medical school morgue, there were little to no controls in place to prevent this harm from occurring at Harvard. Instead, according to the allegations, an unsupervised Lodge was able to dismember the donated bodies; bring unauthorized people into the morgue to inspect and purchase body parts, including during working hours; and carry body parts out of the morgue for years. Other red flags, such as his license plate describing himself as the “Grim-R[eaper],” which revealed an unprofessional insensitivity given his position in a medical school morgue, were also ignored or tolerated. Thus, 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 full text of the slip opinion is attached below.