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The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts allowed on Monday lawsuits against Harvard over mishandling of human remains by a former morgue manager to proceed to discovery.

The decision comes more than a year after affected families appealed a Suffolk Superior Court judge’s dismissal of their case against Harvard and employees of its Anatomical Gift Program.

Families sued Harvard and AGP employees, Mark F. Cicchetti and Tracey Fay, after former HMS morgue manager Cedric Lodge was charged with selling and trafficking human remains of their relatives from the morgue in 2023. Lodge pled guilty in May, and admitted to selling and transporting stolen body parts across state lines.

“There were little to no controls in place to prevent this harm from occurring at Harvard,” Justice Scott L. Kafker wrote in the unanimous decision.

The case will now head back to Suffolk Superior Court, where the families’ representation will have an opportunity to obtain evidence from Harvard.

While actions against Harvard and Cicchetti were allowed to move forward, the court upheld the dismissal of the case against Fay, writing that the families failed to prove “peculiarly pervasive noncompliance” on her part.

Lawyers for Harvard argued that they were not liable because they were unaware of Lodge’s illegal activity and acted in “good faith” under Massachusetts’s Uniform Anatomical Gift Act.

Kafker, however, pointed to previous examples of morgue theft at universities and ruled that “Harvard’s extraordinary failure to adequately supervise the morgue’s operations and properly protect the donated remains” were sufficient to allege HMS demonstrated a lack of good faith in its actions.

The court also cited Harvard’s disregard of “red flags” like Lodge’s “Grim-R[eaper]” license plate as demonstration of the school’s lack of good faith.

HMS spokesperson Laura DeCoste wrote in a statement that “Cedric Lodge’s criminal actions — which, as the federal indictment against him states, were ‘without the knowledge or permission of HMS’ — were abhorrent and inconsistent with the standards and values that Harvard, our anatomical donors, and their loved ones expect and deserve.”

“We reaffirm our deep sorrow for the families of donors who may have been impacted, and for the uncertainty and distress they are facing,” she added.

After learning of the allegations against Lodge in early 2023, Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 and HMS Dean George Q. Daley ’82 announced the creation of a panel to evaluate the AGP’s policies and practices. The panel concluded that several additional security measures could have been taken — including improved background checks and more thorough record keeping for remains. HMS created a task force to make changes.

Jeffrey N. Catalano, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the Monday decision from the Suffolk Superior Court does not conclude that Harvard acted in bad faith, but that there are sufficient facts to show that the institution had failed to act in good faith.

“It’s the responsibility of institutions, and in this case Harvard, we allege, to do everything reasonable to ensure that the remains of those who have generously donated their bodies to science and research are respected and treated with dignity all the way up to the point that they’re put into the ground,” Catalano said.

“Certainly my clients feel as though their rights have been vindicated; the right to pursue answers and accountability for what occurred,” he said, adding that the decision allows the families to go back to do discovery and depositions. “We feel that this gives us the opportunity to get to the bottom of how this happened, right under the nose of Harvard for so many years.”

–Staff writer Abigail S. Gerstein can be reached at abigail.gerstein@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @abbysgerstein.

—Staff writer Ella F. Niederhelman can be reached at ella.niederhelman@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @eniederhelman