In February 2016, Washington, D.C.-based George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences stopped accepting donated bodies because it couldn't identify as many as 50 cadavers. Now, three families have filed a lawsuit claiming the medical school lost their relatives' remains, according to The Washington Post.
Until February, the medical school had run a "willed body donor program" where donated cadavers were held for a period of two years. After two years, the bodies were cremated and either returned to the families or buried at a nearby cemetery.
But the three plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed in the D.C. Superior Court, claim GWU either gave their family members' remains to the wrong family or buried them without authorization. They're each seeking $10 million from the medical school.
Eileen Kostaris said GWU allegedly never informed her of what happened to her grandmother's remains. Mary Louise Powell's mother was cremated, but she claims she received the remains of the wrong person in December 2015. GWU allegedly mixed up the timeline regarding Alex Naar's mother, Ruth Kurle. Although Ms. Kurle died in October 2013, GWU's records indicate her body was donated in 2015.
The lawsuit also alleges that until the plaintiffs' attorney threatened a lawsuit, the three plaintiffs weren't told that GWU had collected genetic samples of their relatives' cadavers. According to the lawsuit, GWU allegedly ignored repeated requests to share the samples with the families.
GWU spokesperson Candace Smith said "There has been no intent on the part of the university to mislead affected families."