NEWS / California hospital sued for delayed death certificate

A couple of families have filed lawsuits against a Sacramento-area hospital over what they say was an unacceptable delay in the issuance of their relatives’ death certificates. Both families claim the hospital failed to inform them about the deaths of their loved ones causing them to report them as missing to law enforcement.

The first person, a man named Michael, died in July 2021, but his mother Valerie Gray states that she only found out about his death a month later on August 13.

“It was Friday the 13th. It was a bad day,” Valerie Gray was quoted by KCRA Channel 3 as saying, “ I got a call from the coroner telling me that my son had passed away.”

Michael’s death certificate indicates that he passed away from a drug overdose at the San Juan Medical Center. Valerie became concerned about her son after he disappeared in July 2021. Her family then contacted the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, where a detective found that Michael’s last transaction was at a 7-Eleven store. The employee of the store told police that Michael had passed out in the parking lot and that an ambulance had been called to the scene.

The detective determined that Michael had been taken to Mercy San Juan Medical Center, a local hospital run by Dignity Health. The detective claims he called the hospital but was told Michael had been released from the hospital.

However, it appears that Michael had actually passed away from a drug overdose. Dignity Health claims they attempted to contact the man’s next of kin, Valerie, twice, but to no avail. Valerie claims she never got a phone call. Dignity Health also claims they informed Sacramento County of Michael’s death on July 10, 2021. The Coroner’s Office, however, claims they were only notified of Michael’s death in August.

In the meantime, the police investigation revealed that Michael’s body had been taken by Dignity Health to an off-site storage facility.

“It just makes me so angry,” Valerie stated. “It's something that, you know, nobody should ever have to go through, you know, their loved one kept somewhere you don't know.”

A similar case involving a different family, but the same hospital, occurred 2 years later.

On April 8, 2023, Jessie Peterson, a type-1 diabetic who had been going in and out of the hospital struggling with her diagnosis as well as her drug addiction, called her mother Ginger Congi asking to be taken home. Ginger explained that she could not take her home at the time and implored her daughter to stay at the hospital.

A few days later, Ginger called the hospital again but was told that her daughter left the hospital against medical advice. The family then started a search and filed a missing person’s report.

Months later the Sheriff’s Office told the family that Jessie had been found deceased.

Jessie’s death certificate revealed a shocking detail—the woman never left the hospital and died on April 8, 2023, merely a few hours after her fateful phone conversation with her mother. The death certificate was signed off by a doctor almost a year later, on April 4, 2024.

“That whole time that we thought that she was alive,” Jessie’s sister Angie stated. “Why did it take you a year to let us know that she had passed away?”

Dignity Health once again claimed that they attempted to contact Jessie’s mother “multiple times”, with records reportedly showing that their employee made 10 calls to Ginger Congi’s number within 8 hours of Jessie’s death. Congi maintains she never received any calls from the hospital.

And once again, Jessie’s body was kept at Dignity Health’s off-site storage facility known as Cremations Only.

Ginger and Angie Congi are accusing the hospital of negligence and say they want to hold them accountable.

“All I did was think it's because she was transient. It's because she was an addict. They just discarded her,” Angie said. “That's what I was left to think because nobody can explain to me what happened.”

Both the Grays and the Congis have filed civil lawsuits against Dignity Health for such a delay in the issuance of the death certificates. These cases are pending at the Sacramento County Superior Court.