A patient's family is bringing a lawsuit against Sacramento, Calif.-based Mercy San Juan Medical Center after a 31-year-old woman died and her body was put into cold storage without the family's knowledge, The Sacramento Bee reported Aug. 20.
The family of Jessie Peterson filed the lawsuit Aug. 7. According to the lawsuit, Ms. Peterson was readmitted to Mercy San Juan on April 6, 2023. Her medical records show she was discharged two days later against her physician's medical advice, but she was actually pronounced dead at 4:37 p.m. on April 8 by hospital staff. On April 9, Ms. Peterson's body was transferred to a cold storage facility.
Ms. Peterson's mother said she spoke to her daughter two hours before she was pronounced dead, and her daughter had asked to be picked up because she wanted to leave the hospital. After that phone call, the family said they did not hear from Ms. Peterson or the hospital and when the mother called three days later, she was told that the daughter had left against medical advice, according to the lawsuit.
The family alleges that the hospital never informed them of Ms. Peterson's death, despite the mother being listed as next of kin. California law requires attending physicians to issue a certificate of death within 15 hours of a person's passing.
In the months that followed, the family filed a missing person's report and arranged for Ms. Peterson's information to be posted on the California Department of Justice website for missing persons.
They learned of Ms. Peterson's passing on April 12 — more than a year after her death — when detectives called to inform them that her body had been found at an off-site storage facility. Ms. Peterson's body was so decomposed that her fingerprints were no longer visible and an autopsy was "rendered impossible," according to the report. Ms. Peterson's death certificate was filled out by a Mercy San Juan physician on April 4, 2024, about a week before the family learned of her whereabouts, and listed the cause of death as cardiopulmonary arrest.
The family is seeking roughly $15 million in statutory and punitive damages for negligence.
"We extend our deepest sympathies to the family during this difficult time. We are unable to comment on pending litigation," Dignity Health told Becker's.
Mercy San Juan is operated by Dignity Health and owned by Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health.