Lawsuit says Sac County hospital donated organs without consent

The family of a Sacramento County woman has filed a civil lawsuit this week against Dignity Health and the off-site morgue it contracts with to store human remains after patient deaths at its hospitals.KCRA 3 Investigates exclusively revealed last week that the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office spent months looking into the disappearance of Tonya Walker, the third missing persons case now linked to a Dignity Health hospital and its backlog of human remains.A new lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court alleges that not only did Dignity Health fail to notify Walker’s family after she died, but it also claims Dignity donated Walker’s organs without permission.Tonya Walker’s DeathAt 51 years old, Walker died at Dignity Health’s Mercy General Hospital on November 2, 2023.However, the family claims the hospital never notified them and failed to issue a death certificate within eight days, as required by California law. Instead, the death certificate shows it was signed about five months after Walker’s death.In that time, the family and Sacramento County detectives had been searching for Walker.“They need to be held to task for the absolute nightmare that families are living, who do not know if their family members are dead or alive,” said Rachel Fiset, the attorney representing Walker’s family in the lawsuit. KCRA 3 Investigates has previously revealed that Dignity Health had a backlog of dozens of bodies—patients kept at a morgue without any public record of their death, in some cases for years, even though California law requires a death certificate within just eight days.“This case appears to be a callous disregard for Dignity’s patients and their families,” Fiset said. “These small acts of simply following the law, filling out a timely death certificate, notifying families, that is all that it takes for this extreme grief not to have happened to these families.”Condition of Walker’s RemainsAfter learning of Walker’s death, her sisters went to view the body at an off-site morgue to confirm that it was, in fact, her.“They didn’t recommend for us to view her body, but because we went through so much and people told us so many lies about, you know, about everything that happened to her, we were just like we wanted to see it anyway,” said Walker’s sister, Kalia Zachary.The family said it appeared Walker’s eyes and skin were surgically removed from her body. “We identified her through the tattoo on her arm. Her body was in the worst condition you can imagine. Her face looked like someone put battery acid all on her face,” said Walker’s other sister, Dalee Marez.The lawsuit actually alleges that “Dignity unilaterally made the decision to make Ms. Walker an organ donor, and then without any permission whatsoever, harvested Ms. Walker’s eyes and tissue.”’Cremations Only’While this is the third family KCRA 3 Investigates has uncovered that filed a lawsuit against Dignity Health over allegations of failed death notifications and delayed death certificates, it is the first to also sue the off-site morgue that Dignity has been contracting with to store bodies for months or years at a time after patient deaths.It is more commonly known as Cremations Only, but the official business name cited in the lawsuit is Mortuary Support Services of Northern California. It lists Michael Robert Lofton as the owner.The lawsuit alleges the company “failed to properly store Ms. Walker’s remains by failing to embalm Ms. Walker’s body and refrigerate it at the appropriate temperature and/or storing her remains at a facility that did not meet the appropriate standards set by law.”It also states that a permit is required by law to store a body for more than eight calendar days, but that the company held Walker’s body for five and a half months before finally obtaining a permit.Attorneys for Lofton and Mortuary Support Services of Northern California sent KCRA 3 Investigates the following statement:Ms. Mitri, obviously, this is a very unfortunate situation; however, our client, Mortuary Support Services of Northern California, disputes that it has any liability in this matter and we intend to vigorously defend any claims against it. However, as this matter is now in litigation, we cannot comment further. Thank you for providing an opportunity to respond.History of Backlog and OversightDignity Health did not respond to KCRA 3 Investigates’ request for comment.However, KCRA 3 Investigates previously obtained probate court records related to 22 other cases in which Dignity Health hospitals, including Mercy General and Mercy San Juan, took more than one year to issue a death certificate after patients died.In those documents, Dignity Health claimed the “COVID-19 pandemic impacted the process of obtaining death certificates” and “created a backlog of patients being held” at its off-site morgue.The lawsuit that Walker’s family filed this week also claims that the Sacramento County District Attorney is now investigating. However, the DA’s Office did not confirm that to KCRA.“Our office does not comment on what we are, or are not, investigating,” a spokesperson said.It would be a major development if the DA’s Office is investigating. Up to now, while state regulators have known about some of these issues for quite some time, they have not taken any enforcement action.As early as 2022, state regulators flagged deficiencies at Dignity Health’s Mercy San Juan Medical Center regarding its practices after patient deaths. Then, inspections by the California Department of Public Health that followed showed that the problems have continued.The CDPH looked into complaints about the hospital from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4 of 2024, finding that it failed to follow policies related to “family notification of patient death, timely completion of death certificates and processing of patient remains for a sample of three out of 61 hospital deceased patients stored at an off-site morgue.”A CDPH report stated that “these failures contributed to ongoing delays in processing death certificates, lack of family notification of patient deaths and prolonged storage of patient bodies in an off-site morgue.”In the case of more than two dozen patients, storage in the off-site morgue lasted anywhere from one to two years, according to CDPH.In 2022, the CDPH also found that there was at least one instance in which the hospital did not notify the family about a patient’s death for six weeks. In addition, the CDPH said that a doctor failed to follow state law, and instead of completing medical records for the patient within two weeks, the doctor took 39 days.In 2023, the CDPH made another concerning discovery. A report states that after a patient died, the hospital moved the body for storage. However, no one documented where, causing the patient’s son “emotional distress” as he was uncertain “of his mother’s whereabouts.”Each year that the CDPH identified deficiencies, the hospital submitted plans of correction to the state agency. And each time, the CDPH declared the hospital “in compliance” after a revisit survey.Yet, the hospital did not actually follow through on all of its planned fixes.CDPH Director and State Public Health Officer Dr. Erica Pan has repeatedly declined to sit down with KCRA 3 Investigates for an on-camera interview to discuss hospital oversight.When her communications team eventually offered media availabilities in March and April to discuss the five-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, we again followed up to request an interview on Dignity Health’s backlog of human remains. The CDPH communications office never scheduled an interview or gave a reason for declining to do so.Read more from KCRA 3 Investigates about Dignity Health’s backlog of human remainsSee more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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