There’s a place nearby our home in Las Vegas that calls itself “Dignity Health.” Several times it has caused me to comment to Vivien that “dignity” is probably the last thing they stand for.
Have you noticed when people start banging on about some theme or quality it’s because they are abusing it? It’s like that is their attention-awareness but not necessarily because it’s their torch or standard but they are pushing the issue, to try and compensate.
I’d worry that an old folks home calling itself “dignity” retirement or similar would be the LAST place the old ones would be treated with dignity. Instead they would be feeding patients unsustainable food; cutting their freedom to zero, to make them easily manageable; and pumping them with drugs to keep them quiet and docile. The corporation is pushing the word to try and compensate, as I say.
Well, so it is with these people. A recent article in the medical press made it clear. A number of lawsuits have been filed against California’s Dignity Health for allegedly not notifying families of patient deaths. But worse: that its contracted storage facility failed to maintain appropriate temperatures, leaving unembalmed bodies to decompose for months or even years.
The latest lawsuit focuses on a man called Charles Wesley Harvey, who died June 2, 2022 at Dignity’s Mercy San Juan Medical Center, a 384-bed hospital in Sacramento. Harvey was transported to Mortuary Support Services of Northern California (MSSNC) and “sat decomposing in improper storage for years,” the lawsuit said, “like dozens of others before him and potentially hundreds after him.”
His family was not informed of his death until Nov. 28, 2025, the lawsuit said. OVER 3 YEARS LATER!
The suit, which refers to more than a dozen patients, also alleges that MSSNC stored the remains at temperatures over 45°F, the legal state-required threshold for a morgue.
Rachel Fiset, the attorney representing families in the class action suit, told MedPage Today she has seen pictures of bodies as they were stored, and that “none of these bodies were embalmed. You can’t believe it.”
Fiset said she doesn’t understand why MSSNC kept the bodies so long. Allegedly, Dignity was only paying for their storage for 60 days at $15 a day, she said.
“I have no idea what the incentive was for keeping all these bodies,” in one case for 3.5 years, Fiset said. “Something is going on, and I don’t know what it is yet.”
Lost In Physical Purgatory
It all made me think of Robin Cook’s exciting thriller Coma (made into a movie of that name), in which bodies of deliberately created brain-dead patients were being stored secretly in a deep facility, in order to harvest their organs for huge profits.
Some of the patients in the complaint are identified only with their first name and first letter of their last name. The complaint alleges that the hospital where they died failed to file death certificates within 8 days of the patient’s death as required by state regulations.
It also specified that the hospital failed to complete “the medical and health section data and the time of death … attested to by the physician and surgeon last in attendance” within 15 hours. The hospital entities in custody of the human remains are required to “prepare the certificate and register it with the local registrar, which also was not done.”
Dignity and MSSNC also failed to obtain an appropriate storage permit for any of the bodies named in the complaint, which is also required by state regulation.
“As a result, Mr. Harvey’s body as well as the body of every individual in the Decedent Group was lost in physical purgatory…” A bit melodramatic but listen, “They were no longer a patient of Dignity, and without the registration of a death certificate, they could not be found in any database of deceased at the county or state level.”
Yikes!
Dignity operates six hospitals in the Sacramento area, and it is not clear in which hospitals, other than Mercy San Juan, the other patients named in the lawsuit died.
The lawsuit charges Dignity and its parent company Common Spirit Health with breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and negligent hiring and supervision, and demands a jury trial.
MSSNC (owner Michael Robert Lofton) did not reply to a request for comment. Dignity Health’s spokesman William Hodges said in an email with the usual fudging that its “goal is to provide the best care and support possible for patients and their families. Unfortunately, we are unable to comment on pending litigation.”
Even more startlingly State officials have filed disciplinary actions against Mercy San Juan three times already, in 2022, 2023 and 2024, for mishandling deceased patients’ bodies. This latest lawsuit alleges that Dignity failed to implement many of the corrections required.
In other words these are a couple of vile corporations, cynically ignoring complaints, disciplinary action or any sense of care or concern for patients and families. I hope this all goes on record and when the executives die, their bodies are left out on a hillside to rot, denied burial.
Previously, the families of three patients sued the hospital system in separate complaints. The family of Jessie Marie Peterson, 31, said they were told Jessie left Mercy San Juan against medical advice when in fact she had died, and was sent to storage “on Shelf Number Red 22 A and forgotten.”
The mother of a Michael Gray claims in different lawsuit that she was never contacted about her son’s death on July 10, 2021, from an accidental overdose at Mercy San Juan, “despite having his cell phone, wallet, and identification with his current home address.” Gray’s body also was sent to the storage facility “where it was neither autopsied nor preserved.”
This case was settled for an undisclosed amount. Bet you it would come out of the shareholder’s portion of profits, not the top executives’ ill-gotten gains.
A third lawsuit filed in April 2025 alleges that another Dignity Hospital, Mercy General in Sacramento, “did not take any action to notify” the family of Tonya Walker, who died Nov. 2, 2023, and did not issue a death certificate that would have triggered official notices to the police and government authorities.
“Walker’s body sat decomposing in improper storage for 7 months while Ms. Walker’s family scoured Sacramento’s darkest recesses hoping to find her,” according to the lawsuit.
Rachel Fiset, the attorney representing families, said her case includes findings “so egregious, with appalling violation after violation, with so much damage to these families. Whatever your belief in the afterlife is, this certainly is not part of it. This is not the way you envision going.”
Well said, Rachel.
Too bad most ghost stories are apocryphal. It would be lovely to think of these rascals been haunted and driven out of house and home by enraged phantoms, screaming for dignity in their nightmares.
Ooops. Am I being too harsh? Nah, just put it down to my quirky sense of humor!
To your health,
Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor
SOURCE REFERENCE:
Dignity Health Mismanaged Patient Remains, Lawsuit Claims
— After years, one body was “unrecognizable” due to alleged high temperatures
By Cheryl Clark, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today, January 30, 2026
