Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento, Calif. (Google Maps).
Several hospitals in California lied to families about what happened to their loved ones after they died, according to multiple lawsuits filed in the Golden State.
According to an investigative story by SFGate, the Dignity Health medical group is the target of several lawsuits filed by families of people who apparently died while under their hospitals” care. Law&Crime reviewed three of the lawsuits in question — which have all been answered by Dignity Health and are still ongoing — and found claims by families involving accusations of possible organ harvesting without consent, blatantly lying about a patient checking herself out “against medical advice,” and sending deceased patients to offsite mortuaries where their bodies decomposed.
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One story told by SFGate involved 31-year-old Jessie Peterson, who had been diagnosed with Type I diabetes as a child and was hospitalized several times due to her condition. According to the lawsuit, Peterson was admitted to Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Sacramento on April 6, 2023, following a “diabetic episode.” On April 8, 2023, Peterson called her mother at 2:50 p.m. to be picked up, but her mother, Ginger Congi, told her to stay.
Peterson died less than two hours later of cardiopulmonary arrest, but her family was never notified of the death, the lawsuit stated. Congi was told that her daughter was “discharged against medical advice” on the day she died. Hospital records showed that Peterson’s body was put in cold storage on April 9, 2023, “and forgotten.”
Her family filed a missing person report in Sacramento County, and her case eventually reached the U.S. Department of Justice. On April 12, 2024 — more than a year after Peterson’s death — detectives told her family that her corpse was found at the same hospital where she died. Her death certificate had been issued on April 4, 2024, nearly a year after she died at that hospital.
By the time Peterson’s family had access to her remains, her body was “so discolored” from decomposition that “her tattoos could not be identified,” the lawsuit said. Her body was in such poor condition that the family could not have an open casket funeral.
More from Law&Crime: ‘Unable to have a fully open-casket’: Hospital leaves dead mother to decompose in ‘inadequately refrigerated room’ before giving her to funeral home, lawsuit says
Law&Crime also reviewed the case of 51-year-old Tonya Walker, a mother of four who was going through a tumultuous period in late 2023. Despite her struggles with drugs and homelessness, Walker kept regular contact with her family, as her family told SFGate. When she stopped returning calls on Nov. 2, 2023, it was cause for concern.
Walker’s family reported her missing on Nov. 10, 2023, not knowing that she was already dead. According to the lawsuit, Walker died at Dignity Health’s Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento on Nov. 2, 2023, but no one notified her family, and a death certificate was never issued. The lawsuit stated that her body was transferred to a mortuary service where it “sat decomposing in improper storage for seven months.”
In the meantime, Walker’s family “scoured Sacramento’s darkest recesses hoping to find her.”
According to the lawsuit, the Sacramento Police Department learned that Walker was dead on May 31, 2024. Officials notified Walker’s family that her body was at the mortuary, and family members rushed to identify and retrieve her remains. When they were brought to view Walker’s body, it was “in an unrecognizable state beyond imaginability.” The lawsuit stated that Walker’s “eyes and skin appeared to have been surgically removed,” and claimed that “Dignity appeared to have unilaterally elected to donate Ms. Walker’s organs without consent.”
The lawsuit said that this final image of Walker seen by her grieving family “will haunt them forever.”
A third case reviewed by Law&Crime involved Michael Gray, whose age was not available. According to the lawsuit against Dignity Health filed by his mother, Valeria Gray, Michael Gray died of an overdose at Mercy San Juan Medical Center on July 10, 2022. Despite having identification on him when he was admitted — including the home address where he resided with his mother, wallet, and cellphone — he was treated as a “John Doe” by the hospital and put in “offsite storage” after his death “where it was neither autopsied nor preserved.”
According to the lawsuit, the hospital claimed that a “chaplain” had contacted Michael Gray’s family to notify them of his death, but “has mistakenly called the wrong number and failed to leave a message or follow up.” The lawsuit added that the hospital could not identify who the purported “chaplain” was.
Michael Gray’s body was in storage for about one month before the hospital had it picked up by the coroner at the urging of the county sheriff’s office, which had been working with the dead man’s family to find him.
In all three cases, the deceased had arrived at the hospital with identifying information and current addresses but none of their loved ones were apparently notified that they had died. Peterson’s lawsuit claimed that Dignity Health “failed in its most fundamental duty” when it neglected to notify the woman’s family that she died.
Law&Crime reached out to Dignity Health, which has filed answers to all of the lawsuits, for comment. Michael Gray’s case was settled out of court, and legal proceedings are ongoing in the remaining two cases. SFGate reported that William Hodges, a spokesperson for Dignity Health, said that “the company is declining to comment on the allegations.”
