When the dead need an attorney
Morgue case lawyer has unique expertise
Kathryn E. Barnett, a Nashvillebased lawyer, recently joined as cocounsel in the lawsuits filed against Harvard Medical School after its morgue manager was arrested and charged with stealing and selling body parts. Barnett, who is with the national personal-injury law firm of Morgan & Morgan, brings a unique expertise: She specializes in cases of “mass desecration,” when a large number of corpses are mishandled.
Nearly a dozen lawsuits have been filed against Harvard by relatives of people who donated their bodies for medical education. Medical students typically dissect a cadaver during their first year; the remains are then supposed to be cremated. Instead, prosecutors allege, morgue manager Cedric Lodge sold human heads, brains, skin, and bones to an underground marketplace of human body parts. The civil cases, filed by horrified relatives of donors, have been consolidated in Suffolk Superior Court.
The Globe’s Felice J. Freyer recently talked with Barnett about how she got involved with such cases and their impact on families. Their conversation has been condensed and lightly edited.
How did you come to specialize in cases involving desecration of corpses?
It’s certainly not something I went to law school to do, or even knew about in law school. When the Tri-State Crematory case happened in Georgia [in 2002], I was close by in Nashville and got involved in the litigation and ultimately was the lead trial lawyer. Because of my experience with that, cases have just come to me because it is a really unique area of the law.
What happened with the Georgia crematory?
Funeral homes in Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama were turning to TriState Crematory when a client wanted a body cremated — without checking the place out in any way. It was unregulated. Everything you could possibly imagine happening happened. They didn’t cremate all the bodies. Bodies were found strewn around the property, bodies were found in large pits.
‘Harvard needs to be held accountable. Right now, their position has been, “We’re just victims here.” It’s deeply insulting to the families.’
KATHRYN E. BARNETT, co-counsel in the lawsuits filed against Harvard Medical School
There were also buckets of cremated remains found, and parts of bodies found. Some people were given cement [instead of their relative’s ashes]. Some people got human remains, but it wasn’t their loved one. I remember this lovely woman who’d been carrying the ashes of what she thought were her husband in a locket around her neck for years. And then his body was found on the property.
The suits focused on each of the funeral homes, because that’s where the families put their trust, kind of like the Harvard case. [Some 1,600 family members ultimately received $36 million from the funeral homes.]
One of the things I’m most proud of — we got the property [where the crematory stood] transferred into a land trust so that it would never be built on. It would remain a place of repose.
What makes this a unique area of the law?
It is so devastating for families. From an emotional standpoint, it’s just heartbreaking. From an intellectual standpoint, courts have struggled in every state to figure out how to recognize the harm. It’s not a piece of property like, “You hit my mailbox.” But it’s not a living person. There’s not any federal or state statute that would cover this; it grows out of the common law. Every state has come down on the side of recognizing that the next of kin has a right to carry out the wishes [of deceased loved ones] and interference with that right is something that’s actionable.
More often than not, there’s a resolution, which is never complete justice, it’s never complete compensation. For instance, in the Harvard case, there’s no amount of money that any family I represent will get that will ever make them feel like, “Oh, I’m so glad that happened.” The families’ focus is, “We don’t want this to happen to someone else.” And a good way to do that is a judgment.
What are some other cases of mass desecration that you handled?
The medical examiner in Nashville, where I live, decided to go on national reality TV and do a show called “True Stories from the Morgue” [in 2003]. But he didn’t get permission from the families. I represented these families who found out when someone called and said, “We saw your son being autopsied.” They had covered the face or blurred the face, but you could tell who it was.
I have a case right now down in Florida, outside of Orlando, where developers built a new subdivision right next to a historic Black church and cemetery, and flooded the cemetery. People couldn’t visit. The graves were covered, all of them, in water, and some of the caskets floated up. It’s a horrific case, and it’s many hundreds of families. They can’t think about Mom without thinking about muddy water washing over the whole grave. One of the women that I represent has four babies buried there, and she has been plagued with nightmares of her little girls drowning.
I was the counsel in a case in Memphis [in 2018], which was a cemetery where they kept no records and buried bodies several to a grave. It was all done out of sight. The funeral directors would drive up with the families. They had a little staging area, they would put the coffin there, they would say their words, and they would tell the family, “Now we have to leave.” They were told they couldn’t stay behind. It was maybe the most inexpensive place to bury, and these were families who didn’t have a whole lot in many cases, and they didn’t know how it’s supposed to happen.
You mentioned that your clients in the Harvard case want to make sure it doesn’t happen again. What do you think needs to be done to ensure that?
First off, Harvard needs to be held accountable. Right now, their position has been, “We’re just victims here.” It’s deeply insulting to the families. They trusted Harvard.
All the parts of remains that are being recovered need to be tested to see what can be determined. There may be DNA in some of those samples. They need to be reunited to the greatest extent possible.
I want Harvard to look at its policies and procedures, as well as every medical school out there that’s accepting donations. Do background checks on your employees, periodically reevaluate your staff, do annual performance reviews, have written policies. Those things are the minimum for any business. It’s pretty shocking [that such basic procedures were not followed, according to an expert review that Harvard commissioned].
What have you learned about how these cases affect family members?
When this happens, it’s so devastating for families, because there’s this guilt, so much guilt that you couldn’t protect and honor your father or your child. There’s something so deeply important about your last respects to your loved ones. It’s not tied to any faith, any religion.
You lose someone. You go through the grief process, and you finally get to a place hopefully where it’s better. You can think back on the person you lost with happy memories, and think about the good times and the things you loved about them. [But for those affected by the Harvard morgue thefts] when they think back on their father, their mother, their husband, they immediately think of that horrible morgue with criminals walking through, picking and choosing what they want.
I had no idea, back when I got involved with the Tri-State Crematory case, just how deeply devastating it is. Now I really understand the importance of the ritual and the role that all that plays in the grief process. It’s easy for people and businesses that handle remains to lose sight of the fact that this is not just a cadaver. This was someone’s mother, this was someone’s husband, this is a person, and you have been given a unique, amazing trust that needs to be respected.
How has working on these kinds of cases affected you?
They’re hard cases, because it is so emotional. It is hard knowing that I cannot achieve full justice. There’s no fixing this. It can’t be fixed.