Richmond

SF Supes to Vote to Pay $3M to Lynne Spalding Family

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote Tuesday on whether to pay almost $3 million to settle a claim filed by the family of a woman found dead in a hospital stairwell 17 days after she disappeared from her hospital room last year.
 
Lynne Spalding's body was found by a building engineer checking the locked stairwell at San Francisco General Hospital. The 57-year-old woman was being treated for a bladder infection and was described as disoriented when she left her room.
 
The lawyer for Spalding's family tells the San Francisco Chronicle the city will pay $2.941 million and the University of California will pay $59,000. UC was named in the family's legal claim over Spalding's death because its doctors and nurses were involved in her care and monitoring.

Spalding's death sparked multiple investigations focusing on communication failures between the hospital and sheriff's deputies who provide security and conducted the search for Spalding.

A sheriff's department dispatcher who assured the nurse a deputy would check on the report was fired. Two other sheriff's employees were suspended and five others disciplined.

The coroner said Spalding died of dehydration and liver failure related to alcoholism. The coroner said Spalding had died several days before she was found, but could not determine an exact time of death.

Haig Harris, the family's lawyer, said Spalding's 20-year-old son and 24-year-old daughter will split the settlement.

"No amount of money will bring back the mother of these two children,'' Harris said.

Matt Dorsey, a spokesman for the city attorney's office, said the settlement was fair.

"We are glad we were able to resolve it without the costs, risk and heartache of litigation,'' he said.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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