Harvard urges judge to dismiss morgue body parts case
The macabre subject of donated bodies and their disposal took center stage in a downtown Boston courtroom Friday, as attorneys for Harvard University sought to dismiss claims that the university should be liable for the alleged trafficking of human remains at its morgue.
Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Salinger heard arguments before a rapt courtroom over an arcane state law that governs donations of human bodies and parts for medical research and educational purposes. Most of the hearing centered on sharply different views of an immunity provision embedded in that law and how broadly it should be interpreted.
At issue is whether a statute written more than five decades ago was intended to give institutions with anatomical gift programs blanket immunity from wrongdoing — even for acts as heinous as stealing, selling, and desecrating donated bodies.
The judge did not enter a decision but called the case “very troubling and difficult.” In a sign of how closely the case is being followed, more than 150 people watched the proceedings Friday afternoon on Zoom as dozens more packed the courtroom.
Federal prosecutors alleged last June that Cedric Lodge, 55, former manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue, and others were engaged in a multistate conspiracy over several years to steal and sell body parts from donated cadavers that were supposed to be cremated. At times, Lodge allowed buyers to visit the morgue to choose which body parts they wanted, according to the criminal indictments.
The scandal led to charges against seven people, spawned a dozen lawsuits against Harvard from relatives of people who donated their bodies to the school’s anatomical gift program, and has raised broader concerns about oversight of programs that take donations of bodies for medical research.
Attorneys for Harvard filed a motion in November to dismiss nine of the lawsuits, arguing that the school is immune from liability under the state’s anatomical gift law, which they assert protects institutions if they are acting in “good faith.” The university maintains that the medical school is not liable because it “did not employ Lodge to steal and sell body parts and his conduct could not conceivably be alleged to benefit Harvard.”
At Friday’s hearing, an attorney representing Harvard chronicled the law’s legislative history and argued that its immunity provision should be interpreted broadly and that the provision applied to the entire process of handling donated bodies, from the reception of a cadaver to its ultimate disposal.
“Harvard is deeply sorry for the ... pain that Lodge’s actions have caused families of donors,” Martin Murphy, the attorney representing Harvard, told the judge. “But we respectfully suggest that the court’s decision on this motion to dismiss needs to be governed by a policy choice that the Legislature made ... granting broad immunity to individuals ... and to institutions like Harvard, absent allegations of bad faith.”
Attorneys representing families of people who donated bodies to Harvard have argued in court documents that Harvard exhibited “at best, willfully blind indifference” in its oversight of the morgue and body-donation program and should be held liable. They pointed to the origins of the anatomical gift law and argued that it was designed to encourage donations of bodies for research, and that immunity under the anatomical gift law only applies to the initial process of receiving a donated body.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that Harvard’s broad interpretation of immunity discourages people from donating their bodies to research, undermining the original intent of the statute.
“We believe that immunizing the conduct that’s occurred in this case would have the inverse of the intended effect,” said Jon Sweet of Keches Law Group, which represents families affected by the alleged crimes. “It would actually discourage people from wanting to donate their bodies and that’s not the intent of the statute.”
Besides tarnishing Harvard’s reputation, the case has raised wider questions about whether donors can trust anatomical gift programs. Most medical schools have such programs, which are used to advance medical research and train future physicians. State and federal laws govern the process of gaining consent and how the bodies are obtained, handled, and disposed of. But in most places, no agency performs inspections to make sure proper processes are in place, and medical schools are left to self-police.
The alleged conspiracy ran from about 2018 until at least August 2022, according to the indictments. Lodge allegedly took some stolen remains to his home in New Hampshire, where he and his wife sold them across state lines, prosecutors allege.
Lodge was terminated from his job at Harvard last May.
A panel of outside experts who reviewed Harvard’s body donation program after the criminal charges were filed last summer found significant shortcomings in the morgue’s process for handling donated bodies, and recommended the school tighten security and do more thorough background checks.
Harvard Medical School declined an interview request Friday, but said in an email that it has appointed a task force to review the findings and determine how to implement the “relevant recommendations.”