SJC Reinstates Class Action Against Harvard Medical School Over Stolen Human Remains

When families donated their loved ones' bodies to Harvard Medical School's Anatomical Gift Program, they expected the remains to be used for medical education and then cremated. Instead, Cedric Lodge, the program's morgue manager, was stealing dissected remains and selling them through online networks to buyers across the country. A federal indictment eventually revealed that buyers paid hundreds of dollars for dissected faces, skin, bone, and brains. Lodge was fired in May 2023 and later charged with conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods.

John Bozek of Tewksbury was among the first to speak publicly. His mother, Adele Mazzone, had donated her body to Harvard in 2019. When news of Lodge's conduct broke, Bozek and hundreds of other families had no way to know whether their relatives' remains had been among those stolen.

In June 2023, Jeffrey N. Catalano and Jonathan D. Sweet of Keches Law Group filed a class action in Suffolk Superior Court on behalf of 350 to 400 affected families. The suit alleged negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and infliction of emotional distress, arguing that Harvard failed in its duty to hire, train, supervise, and retain morgue staff with reasonable care. By the time of the SJC appeal, the class had grown to represent approximately 500 families.

A lower court initially dismissed the claims. Keches appealed, and on October 6, 2025, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued a unanimous decision reversing that dismissal. Justice Scott L. Kafker, writing for the court, found that 'instead of the dignified treatment and disposal of human remains required by the act, the donors' remains were ghoulishly dismembered and sold for profit.' The SJC held that Harvard was not shielded by good-faith immunity under the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act and had an obligation to supervise the morgue that it 'failed miserably' to meet over a period of years.

The ruling reinstated claims against Harvard Medical School and program director Mark F. Cicchetti, while affirming dismissal of claims against a separate Harvard manager who had no direct morgue oversight. The case returned to the trial court for discovery. Catalano stated after the decision that institutions bear responsibility 'to do everything reasonable to ensure that the remains are respected and treated with dignity.'