One of two new lawsuits filed in opposition to Harvard within the wake of bombshell allegations a morgue worker was stealing and promoting physique elements donated to the college’s medical college reveals the worker could have recognized because the “Grim Reaper.”
The U.S. Attorney’s workplace for the Middle District of Pennsylvania introduced on June 14 an alleged “nationwide network of individuals bought and sold human remains stolen from Harvard Medical School and an Arkansas mortuary,” which implicated HMS morgue worker Cedric Lodge, 55, of Goffstown, N.H., and 4 others, together with his spouse, Denise Lodge, 63.
“This ghoulish black market was allowed to flourish in plain sight by an HMS morgue employee whose lack of respect for the dead was obvious to anyone who scrutinized his behavior; it is alleged that he drove to work each day and presumably parked in the HMS parking lot with a license plate identifying him as the ‘GRIM-R’ — as in, the grim reaper,” a brand new lawsuit concentrating on the college filed on the finish of day Thursday in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston states.
“The Grim Reaper posted images of himself dressed up in the garb of the undertaker in a Dickens novel with a black hat and overcoat,” it continues. “His license plate and open association with macabre hobbies revealed his view of his job at the morgue as a backdrop for his fantasies instead of a place of reverence and respect.”
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a Deerfield girl named Anne Weiss, “individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated” in opposition to Harvard in addition to the Harvard Medical Center. The grievance states that Weiss is one among three surviving daughters of Dr. William and Mrs. Nancy Buchanan of Greenfield. William Buchanan made preparations to donate his physique to the medical college — the pediatrician’s alma mater — previous to his loss of life at 90 in 2018.
“We look forward to litigating this case on behalf of our client, whose father’s remains were entrusted to Harvard Medical School to further medical education. This was consistent with his life as a dedicated pediatrician,” attorneys Joe Sauder of Sauder Schelkopf and Bryan Lentz of Bochetto & Lentz stated in an announcement to the Herald. “Harvard Medical School failed him, his family, and everyone impacted by these horrific acts.”
The swimsuit joins one filed two days after information of the alleged physique half trafficking ring by the Bridgewater-based Keches Law Group on behalf of Tewksbury’s John Bozek, the son of Adele Mazzone, who had donated her physique to HMS’ Anatomical Gifts Program and whose physique plaintiff believes to have been one of many as much as 400 or so donated to be bought piecemeal.
On Friday, a 3rd lawsuit looking for class-action standing was filed in federal courtroom in Boston, with comparable claims and calls for, this time representing Robert Johnson, of Bradford, the son of a lady named Anne Weaver, who like Mazzone and Buchanan, had donated her physique to the Anatomical Gift Program. The plaintiff is represented by attorneys with the Salem-based Mazow McCullough PC.
“Upon information and belief, Anne Weaver’s remains were one of the many donated cadavers mishandled and desecrated by Defendant Lodge as referenced throughout this complaint,” the doc states, including its personal estimate of 350–400 affected cadavers within the grim enterprise.
Harvard has beforehand stated to the Herald that it “does not comment on pending litigation.” The Weiss lawsuit doesn’t checklist Lodge individually as a defendant as the opposite two do, which every outline him as a “morgue manager.” Harvard has disputed this job title and has repeatedly outlined him as an Anatomical Gifts Program worker working in its morgue who had no supervisory duties.
Both lawsuits stage claims in opposition to the college or Lodge or each. Across the lawsuits, grievance counts embody negligence, reckless infliction of emotional misery, unjust enrichment, breach of contract, and “respondeat superior.”
That final one is a authorized doctrine which the Cornell Wex regulation dictionary says “holds an employer or principal legally responsible for the wrongful acts of an employee or agent, if such acts occur within the scope of the employment or agency.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”