BOSTON: Harvard University has agreed to pay $53 million (£39 million) to resolve lawsuits brought by families who alleged the university mishandled the bodies of loved ones donated to its medical school.
The settlement, proposed in a Boston court early this week, would end lawsuits filed against Harvard Medical School after former morgue manager Cedric Lodge pleaded guilty to stealing and selling human remains on the black market, reports the BBC.
Lodge, 58, took parts from cadavers and sold them online in a scheme that prosecutors said ran from 2018 to 2021.
Harvard Medical School said in a letter shared on Monday that multi-million-dollar settlement funds would be established for families once the court approves the settlement.
Former Morgue Manager Sentenced
Lodge and six other co-conspirators who had no connection to Harvard were indicted and pleaded guilty in 2025.
Prosecutors alleged that Lodge used his position as manager of the school’s Anatomical Gifts Program to dismember cadavers donated for medical research.
Harvard students use donated bodies to study and practise medical procedures. Once the school has finished using them, cadavers are often cremated and their remains returned to families, or buried in the university’s medical cemetery, according to the indictment.
Lodge and his wife sold body parts to buyers in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, the indictment states.
Lodge was sentenced to eight years in prison in December, according to the US Department of Justice. His wife was sentenced to one year and one day.
Lawsuits Revived
Several civil lawsuits were brought against Harvard in 2023, alleging that the university ignored Lodge’s misconduct for years before he was indicted.
The cases were initially dismissed by a state court judge, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court revived them last autumn.
On Monday, both Harvard and the plaintiffs asked the court to approve the class-action settlement, valued at $53 million.
In a letter signed by George Daley, Harvard’s dean of the faculty of medicine, and Bernard Chang, the dean for medical education at Harvard Medical School, the university said: “Lodge’s criminal acts were morally reprehensible and inconsistent with the standards that Harvard University and HMS expect for the treatment of anatomical donors and their loved ones”.
Scholarship To Be Established
Starting in the 2027-2028 academic year, Harvard Medical School will also establish an annual financial-aid scholarship for medical students “in appreciation and in honour of all of our anatomical donors,” the letter said.
It added that while Lodge’s sentencing and the settlement conclude the case, “the process of recovering from this painful incident continues”.
