A Suffolk Superior Court decide dismissed the mixed household lawsuit towards Harvard University associated to a human physique components trafficking ring linked to its medical college morgue.
The go well with mixed 12 separate lawsuits filed on behalf of kin of people that donated their our bodies to the Harvard Medical School Anatomical Gifts program, through which the our bodies can be used to coach future docs on the famend college. The decide dismissed the claims towards Harvard University in addition to the managers of the Anatomical Gifts Program — March Cicchetti and Tracey Fay.
Most of the fits additionally focused Cedric Lodge, the previous morgue supervisor on the coronary heart of the disturbing allegations, and another defendants. Complaints can stand towards Lodge and non-Harvard Medical School-related defendants.
Superior Court Justice Kenneth W. Singer, in his Monday ruling, wrote that he allowed Harvard University’s motions to dismiss the claims “because the factual allegations in the complaints do not plausibly suggest that these Harvard Defendants failed to act in good faith in receiving and handling the donated bodies, or that they are legally responsible for Mr. Lodge’s alleged misconduct.”
The chief plaintiff lawyer within the now-dismissed go well with, which mixed 12 lawsuits representing 47 plaintiffs, promised in an announcement that she would attraction the choice.
“We are disappointed in the Court’s decision. These families have had to relive the trauma of losing their loved ones many times over, and we strongly believe that they deserve a day in court,” lawyer Kathryn Barnett, of nationwide regulation agency Morgan & Morgan, stated. “We will appeal this ruling and keep fighting for them to win justice.”
A Harvard Medical School spokesman didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Tuesday. The college has beforehand stated that it doesn’t touch upon pending litigation and the prison go well with towards Lodge and others remains to be pending in federal court docket.
Justice Singer, throughout the 18-page doc, argues that even when each allegation introduced within the complaints have been factually true, Harvard itself has vast protections beneath the 1971 Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, which governs the system of anatomical presents in Massachusetts and was final revised in 2012.
“The Harvard Defendants are entitled to dismissal of all claims against them because those claims are barred by the UAGA grant of qualified statutory immunity so long as the Harvard Defendants made a good faith attempt to comply with the requirements of the UAGA,” Singer writes, “… the facts alleged also make clear that the Harvard Defendants are not vicariously liable for the alleged misconduct of the former manager of the HMS morgue, and thus cannot lose their qualified immunity based on his bad acts.”
The allegations towards Lodge and 5 others within the accused physique components trafficking ring have been disclosed final June by the U.S. Attorney’s workplace for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, in a go well with claiming the existence of a “nationwide network of individuals bought and sold human remains stolen from Harvard Medical School and an Arkansas mortuary.”
Prosecutors within the federal go well with say that Lodge from 2018 by means of 2022 would even let potential consumers into the college to have a look at physique’s and choose components to purchase. It is in these kind of actions that Singer says Lodge acted effectively outdoors the scope of his employment.
“The plaintiffs’ factual allegations do not plausibly suggest that Lodge’s actions in marketing, stealing, and selling human body parts were motivated, even in small part, by a purpose to serve the interests of HMS,” Singer wrote. “To the contrary, Lodge’s horrifying scheme was allegedly undertaken for purely personal gain and could not possibly have been of any benefit to HMS or furthered the interests of HMS in any way. Plaintiffs therefore may not rely upon Lodge’s alleged misconduct to defeat Harvard’s qualified immunity.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”