Did Sacramento-area hospital misplace woman’s body? Suit says family was never told of death

A family has filed a civil lawsuit against a Sacramento-area hospital’s operators, alleging that workers never told her family that she died before they shipped the 31-year-old woman’s body to a cold storage facility. The negligence, the family claims, lent them false hope during a yearlong missing persons search.

In the suit filed Aug. 7 in Sacramento Superior Court, the family of Jessie Peterson claims Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael and its operators failed to tell them Peterson had died, prompting the family to believe she was still alive and missing for nearly a year. The family is seeking roughly $15 million in statutory and punitive damages for “their outrageous and inexcusable negligence and complete disregard for the dignity of Jessie and failure to respect the rights and needs of Jessie’s family.”

Mercy San Juan, operated by Dignity Health and owned by Chicago-based parent CommonSpirit Health, declined to comment Monday. A spokesperson for CommonSpirit, which acquired Dignity in 2018, said “we extend our deepest sympathies to the family during this difficult time.”

Dignity Health operates six hospitals in Northern California, including Mercy San Juan; CommonSpirit operates 142 hospitals across 21 states.

According to the suit, Peterson was re-admitted to Mercy San Juan on April 6, 2023, following a severe diabetic episode in January that required surgery to her right foot.

Her medical records showed she was discharged two days later against her doctor’s medical advice — in reality, Peterson was pronounced dead at 4:27 p.m. on April 8 by hospital staff, according to the lawsuit filed by her mother and two sisters.

Her mother, Ginger Congi, said she had spoken to her daughter just two hours before, according to the suit, asking to be picked up “because she was going to leave the hospital.”

“On April 9, 2023, Mercy San Juan hospital transferred Jessie’s body to a cold storage facility. Jessie was placed on Shelf Number Red 22 A and forgotten,” the lawsuit says.

After that phone call, the family says they did not hear from Peterson or the hospital. The suit says Congi called the hospital three days later on April 11 and was told “there is no one here by that name.”

“After inquiring further, Ginger was then informed that her daughter left against medical advice. This was, obviously, not true,” the lawsuit says.

Peterson’s family said the hospital never informed them of Peterson’s death even Congi was listed as next of kin and had “extensive previous contact” with the hospital. The family said in the lawsuit that Congi had “zero incoming calls from the Mercy San Juan hospital after Jessie’s passing.”

In the months after Peterson’s body was misplaced, her family filed a missing person’s report with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and arranged for her information to be posted on the California Department of Justice’s website for missing persons. They also posted flyers, visited unhoused communities and “relentlessly inquired” for any information on her disappearance.

They finally learned about Peterson’s passing more than a year after her death — on April 12, 2024 — when a detective with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office informed them that her body had been found at an off-site storage facility.

According to the suit, Peterson’s body was so decomposed that her fingerprints were no longer present. The suit says an autopsy to determine whether medical malpractice occurred was “rendered impossible.” The family also said it was impossible to hold an open-casket funeral.

“As a parent, you just think about your daughter’s body in a body bag on a shelf somewhere,” said attorney Marc Greenberg, a partner with Los Angeles-based Tucker Ellis who is representing Peterson’s family. “This is just inexcusable. This is not a realm or area of work where you can make a few mistakes and it’s not a big deal. No, it is a big deal.”

According to the lawsuit, Peterson’s death certificate was filled out by a San Juan Mercy doctor April 4, 2024, about a week before the family learned of her whereabouts. The cause of death was listed as cardiopulmonary arrest, according to the certificate of death shared with The Sacramento Bee.

Congi and her sisters, Angie Rubino and Chandra Peterson-Chastain, claim in the suit that the hospital was negligent in notifying them of her death and negligent in handling her corpse. The suit also alleges infliction of emotional distress, and a failure to promptly issue a death certificate — California law stipulates an attending physician must issue a certificate of death within 15 hours of a person’s passing.

“Even to this day, the hospital has not apologized to Jessie’s family members,” the lawsuit says.

A trial in the matter isn’t expected for months, but attorneys from both sides will appear for a conference meeting in court Sept. 5.

This story was originally published August 20, 2024 at 5:00 AM.