Harvard agrees to $53M settlement over alleged morgue body-parts sales

Civil suits alleged Harvard ignored misconduct for several years

Harvard University has agreed to pay $53 million to settle class-action lawsuits from families who alleged the school mishandled the remains of loved ones donated to its medical school, according to a settlement proposed in a Boston court on Monday. The agreement resolves litigation tied to the criminal case of Cedric Lodge, a former morgue manager who pleaded guilty in 2025 to stealing and selling human remains from donated bodies.

The deal, which both Harvard and the plaintiffs asked the court to approve on Monday, would establish multi-million dollar settlement funds for families once a judge grants final approval, the university said in a letter shared the same day.

The underlying allegations track back more than seven years. Prosecutors alleged that Lodge, 58, used his position as manager of Harvard Medical School’s “Anatomical Gifts Program” to dismember cadavers that had been donated for research and to sell body parts to buyers in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts in a scheme that ran from 2018 to 2021. Lodge and his wife carried out the sales online, according to the indictment.

Harvard students rely on donated bodies to study and practice medical procedures, the indictment states. When the school finished using a cadaver, the remains were typically cremated and either returned to the family or buried in the university’s medical cemetery — a protocol that prosecutors said Lodge exploited to divert parts to buyers instead.

Lodge pleaded guilty in 2025 along with six other co-conspirators who had no connection to Harvard, all of whom were indicted together. In December, he was sentenced to eight years in prison, according to the Department of Justice. His wife was sentenced to one year and a day.

The families who brought the class actions filed their suits in 2023, alleging that Harvard had ignored Lodge’s misconduct for several years before his indictment. A state court judge initially dismissed the cases, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court revived the litigation last fall, clearing the way for the proposed settlement now before the same court system.

In a letter signed by George Daley, dean of the faculty of medicine, and Bernard Chang, dean for medical education at Harvard Medical School, the deans called Lodge’s acts “morally reprehensible.” “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,” the letter said.

Looking forward, the medical school said it will establish an annual financial-aid scholarship for medical students “in appreciation and in honour of all of our anatomical donors,” beginning in the 2027-2028 academic year.

The letter acknowledged the limits of what the settlement can accomplish. While Lodge’s sentencing and the proposed class-action settlement conclude the legal proceedings, “the process of recovering from this painful incident continues,” the deans wrote.