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Settlement After Morgue Theft
Harvard Medical School agreed to pay a $53 million settlement to resolve civil lawsuits accusing the school of negligence in its handling of donated human remains, after its former morgue manager Cedric Lodge was sentenced to eight years in prison in December for unlawfully transporting stolen human remains.
“Harvard agreed Monday to a $53 million settlement”
Federal prosecutors said that between 2018 and August 2022, Lodge took organs, brains, faces, and other body parts from donated cadavers after they had been used for teaching and research but before they could be disposed of, and brought the remains to his New Hampshire home and sold them to buyers in several states, including Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
Harvard said it would seek the court’s permission to set up “two class action settlement funds totaling $53 million,” and the Harvard Crimson reported a Suffolk Superior Court judge was scheduled to consider preliminary approval Tuesday afternoon.
In a letter to the school community, Harvard Medical School Dean George Daley and Dean for Medical Education Bernard Chang said the agreement would allow Harvard and the plaintiffs to avoid “prolonged litigation,” while also stating that “the process of recovering from this painful incident continues.”
Harvard’s Statement and Court
Harvard said in a letter on Monday that it would seek the court's permission to set up “two class action settlement funds totaling $53 million,” and CBS News reported that a judge gave preliminary approval to the settlement plan on Tuesday.
The settlement includes a pledge by Harvard Medical School to provide a statement to claimant families via a live webinar confirming that Lodge’s criminal acts were “morally reprehensible,” and Reuters reported that Harvard Medical School would also establish an annual scholarship beginning in the 2027-2028 academic year.
Reuters said Lodge had worked in Harvard’s morgue for almost three decades and prosecutors described him as stealing parts from cadavers including heads, faces, brains, skin and hands and transporting them from Harvard's morgue in Boston to his home in Goffstown, New Hampshire.
WBUR reported that a Suffolk Superior Court judge had initially dismissed the cases in February of 2024, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in October 2025 reversed part of that decision and let the lawsuits continue, with an attorney for some plaintiffs saying the SJC decision made history.
Reforms, Scholarship, and Families
As part of the settlement, Harvard Medical School will establish an annual financial aid scholarship for medical students beginning in the 2027-2028 academic year “in appreciation and in honor of all of our anatomical donors,” and the school said the process of distributing funds is expected to take several months.
“in appreciation and in honor of all of our anatomical donors”
The Harvard Crimson reported that after Lodge’s indictment in 2023, the Office of President and Provost appointed three outside experts to conduct a review of the Anatomical Gift Program, and the panel’s December 2023 report recommended changes across six areas: governance, policies, communications, specimens, collections, and facilities.
Harvard Medical School said Monday that all of the panel’s recommendations have since been enacted, and Daley and Chang wrote that “These events do not reflect the reverence we hold for the altruistic individuals who selflessly donate their bodies to our Anatomical Gift Program.”
WBUR said the settlement requires Harvard to tell the donor families what kind of improvements have been made to the anatomical gift program, and it reported that Harvard estimated there are 438 donors who left the morgue between 2018 and March 2023, when Lodge is accused of his crimes.
