By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
A Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court judge is bringing the Harvard cadaver lawsuit back from the dead, ruling Monday that college officials can be held liable for the gruesome scheme.
Associate Justice Scott Kafker overturned a superior court ruling that barred the lawsuit brought by dozens of families whose relatives donated their bodies to science through Harvard Medical School’s Anatomical Gift Program.
“The families whose trust in Harvard was so betrayed are thankful for the Court’s careful attention to this important case. 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,” plaintiff attorneys John Morgan and Kathryn Barnett, of the firm Morgan & Morgan, said in a statement.
In May, former Harvard morgue manager Cedric Lodge, 51, of Goffstown, pleaded guilty to federal charges that he preyed on the dead in his care, trafficking their body parts to buyers throughout the country.
“Lodge stole dissected portions of donated cadavers, including heads, brains, skin, bones, and other human remains, and transported them to his home in [Goffstown] New Hampshire. From there, Lodge and his wife [Denise Lodge, 65] sold the stolen body parts to buyers, including the two alleged co-conspirators, with whom they communicated via social media websites and cell phones,” according to court records.
Cedric Lodge operated his business from Harvard for years before he was caught. He allowed regular buyers to tour the morgue in order to select the parts they wanted to buy, according to court records.
Close to 50 families filed a lawsuit against Harvard and Harvard Medical School officials, including the President and Fellows of Harvard College, Mark Cicchetti, who was the managing director of the Harvard Medical School Anatomical Gift Program and Tracey Fay, the manager of the AGP.
Last year, a Suffolk Superior Court judge dismissed the lawsuits on the grounds that the colleges and the AGP supervisors could not be sued under the theory that they acted in “good faith.”
In his ruling released Monday, Kafker drove a stake through that defense, ruling that Harvard, Harvard Medical School, and Cicchetti can all be sued by the families. The case against Fay remains dismissed.
Cicchetti and the two schools should have known there were longstanding problems with the AGP operations and employee supervision, according to Kafker’s ruling. The AGP operations were found to be pervasively lax, according to an internal investigation conducted after Lodge’s arrest.
The schools failed to meet common standards for anatomical gift operations, and managers failed to conduct proper oversight of Lodge, Kafker writes.
“[A]n 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,” Kafker writes.
The case against Cicchetti can also move forward, as he was the Harvard employee in charge of the operations. Lodge reported directly to Cicchetti, and Cicchetti was the chief embalmer at the AGP, meaning he was frequently at the morgue facility where Lodge was stealing body parts and giving unauthorized tours.
“In short, Lodge was purportedly allowed to run ‘amok’ on Cicchetti’s watch,” Kafker writes.
Fay, on the other hand, did not supervise Lodge, did not spend a lot of time in the morgue, and performed mostly clerical and administrative duties, Kafker writes. The case against Fay, therefore, can be dismissed.
Cedric Lodge and Denise Lodge are still awaiting sentencing in the cases. They each face as much as 10 years in prison.