A California hospital misplaced the body of a 31-year-old woman who died at the facility, leaving her family thinking she was alive and missing for a year, her family alleges in a lawsuit filed Wednesday against the hospital and the Chicago-based health system that owns it.
Jessie Marie Peterson suffered a diabetic episode on April 6, 2023, and went to Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael, Calif., according to the lawsuit, which was filed by her mother and sisters in Superior Court in Sacramento County. The suit was filed against the hospital, unnamed workers involved in the allegations, Dignity Health and Chicago-headquartered CommonSpirit Health. The hospital is part of Dignity Health, which is part of CommonSpirit.
Two days after being admitted, Peterson called her mother, Ginger Congi, asking to be picked up because she was going to leave the hospital, according to the lawsuit. That was the last time Congi spoke with her daughter, the lawsuit alleges. When Congi called the hospital several days later asking to be transferred to her daughter, she was told her daughter wasn’t there and had left “against medical advice,” according to the lawsuit. Peterson’s medical records also indicated she had been discharged from the hospital, according to the lawsuit.
Peterson’s family then began searching for her, filing a missing person report and distributing missing person flyers.
It wasn’t until April 12, 2024 — about a year after Peterson’s family was told she’d left the hospital — that a detective with the Sacramento County sheriff’s office called the family to tell them she’d been found dead. Several days later, the family was told that Peterson’s body was in one of Mercy San Juan’s off-site storage facilities, according to the complaint.
The hospital had not notified the family of her death a year earlier, and the day after she died: “Mercy San Juan hospital transferred Jessie’s body to a cold storage facility. Jessie was placed on Shelf Number Red 22 A and forgotten,” according to the lawsuit.
Peterson’s mother and sisters Angie Rubino and Chandra Peterson-Chastain are alleging, in their lawsuit, negligent handling of a corpse; negligence for failing to notify the family of Peterson’s death and for failing to issue a certificate of death right after she died; and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
“They’ve never apologized, they’ve never acknowledged just how awful a screwup they have here,” said Marc Greenberg, a partner with Tucker Ellis LLP, who represents Jessie’s family in the lawsuit. “There has to be change, and the only way the hospital is going to take a hard look at themselves and how they’re managing this is by understanding there’s a cost in not doing your job right.”
Attempts to reach CommonSpirit and Dignity for comment were not immediately successful Thursday afternoon.
The family is seeking more than $5 million in actual and statutory damages and $10 million in punitive damages, Greenberg said.
CommonSpirit has more than 2,200 sites of care across more than 20 states. Though it has headquarters in Chicago, it does not have health care facilities in Illinois.
