California hospital told woman's family she had checked out when she was actually dead, lawsuit says

Northern California hospital officials told a 31-year-old woman’s family that she had checked out — when the patient had actually died and her body kept in cold storage for a year, loved ones said in a civil lawsuit.

Jessie Marie Peterson had been suffering from Type 1 diabetes when she was admitted to Mercy San Juan Medical Center on April 6 last year, according to allegations made in a Sacramento County Superior Court lawsuit filed earlier this month by the patient’s family.

Days after she was admitted, Peterson’s mother Ginger Congi called Mercy San Juan to check on her daughter was told the patient had been discharged, according to the complaint.

The family filed a missing person’s report with the county sheriff’s department, posted notices around town and even interviewed local homeless people in hopes someone had seen Peterson.

“The family searched and searched for Jessie. It was not until April 12, 2024, that the Sacramento County Detective’s Office notified Jessie’s family that she was found deceased at Mercy San Juan hospital,” according to the lawsuit filed by the plaintiffs’ attorney Marc Greenberg.

“At this point, Jessie’s body was so decomposed that an open casket funeral was not feasible, and Jessie’s fingerprints were not even obtainable for any keepsake.”

The decomposition also made it impossible for an autopsy to determine “whether medical malpractice played any role” in Peterson’s death, the lawsuit said.

The family eventually found out Peterson died on April 8 last year, but it took until April 4 of this year for a death certificate to be signed by Dr. Nadeem Mukhtar.

For almost all this time, Peterson’s body had been kept shelf No. Red 22A in an off-site cold storage unit, according to hospital records obtained by the family.

The family is asking for $25 million for the hospital’s alleged negligence.

A representative for Dignity Health, the corporate umbrella for the hospital, could not be immediately reached for comment on Thursday.

“Mercy San Juan hospital advertises that ‘at our care facilities, we take pride in treating all people with dignity and respect.’ In this case, there was no dignity and no respect,” Greenberg said.

“Mercy San Juan hospital failed in its most fundamental duty to notify Jessie’s family of her death. Mercy San Juan stored Jessie in an off-site warehouse and she was left to decompose for nearly a year while her family relentlessly inquired about her whereabouts.”