Lawsuit Against ‘Angel of Death’ Dismissed

One of the four wrongful-death lawsuits pending against “Angel of Death” suspect Efren Saldivar and his former employer, Glendale Adventist Medical Center, was dismissed this week, with the attorney for a former patient’s family saying he lacked enough evidence to go to trial.

Chris Nicoll, the lawyer for the family of Felicia Loayza, also said he could refile the case if better evidence came to light.

“If you don’t have evidence by the time you get to trial, you’re dead,” he said. “And the police have said there still may be further criminal filings in the future.”

Loayza, 91, died at the hospital on May 24, 1997 at 9:40 a.m.--about three hours after Saldivar began his shift, court records show.

Her body was one of 20 exhumed by investigators as they were preparing their case against Saldivar, the former respiratory therapist who is in custody on murder charges in the deaths of six patients between December 1996 and August 1997. Loayza was not one of the six patients listed in the charges.

During the investigation, tissue samples from the 20 bodies were sent to Livermore National Laboratories to be tested for Pavulon, one of the paralyzing drugs Saldivar is suspected of using on his alleged victims.

Fourteen of the bodies, including Loayza’s, tested negative for Pavulon. But Nicoll said Friday that he wants to wait to see if investigators will test the tissues for the other drug Saldivar may have used, succinylcholine. If such evidence comes to light, he said may refile the suit.

A hospital attorney had no comment on the dismissal, but Saldivar civil attorney Terry Goldberg struck a confident tone Friday, saying he would eventually dispatch the remaining three suits.

“We’ll just attack one case at a time until there’s no cases left,” he said. Saldivar and the hospital have faced as many as eight lawsuits. Two were dismissed by judges before Saldivar’s arrest in January, and a third, brought by the family of 75-year-old alleged murder victim Salbi Asaytran, resulted in a $60,000 settlement.

A fourth suit, which was also handled by Nicoll, was dismissed in January because he found insufficient evidence to bring the case to trial.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys said they are talking with other families of former hospital patients who are looking into the possibility of lawsuits. But future cases could be complicated by statutes of limitations for medical malpractice.

At a hearing April 13, Superior Court Judge Carl J. West will consider Goldberg’s allegation that a lawsuit brought by the family of one of the alleged murder victims--82-year-old Jose Alfaro--should not go forward because the statute of limitations has expired.

A status conference for the three related cases was also set for May 4.

In March 1998, Saldivar confessed to killing 40 to 50 patients at the Glendale hospital with paralyzing drugs. He later recanted. A hearing in his criminal trial is scheduled for the end of March.