California Jury Awards $27.5M to Nurse in Retaliation and Failure to Accommodate Case Against a Long Beach Hospital

Last week (June 26, 2025), a California jury awarded $27.5 million to Nancy Valla, a former chief nursing officer at St. Mary Medical Center, after finding that Dignity Health and its executives had retaliated against her for blowing the whistle and failed to provide reasonable accommodations for her mental health disability.

Valla was hired in April 2018 as the Chief Nurse Executive Officer at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, which is operated by Dignity Health. In March 2019, a homeless woman jumped to her death from the hospital’s parking structure. This was the second suicide at the facility involving the parking structure; another person had died similarly in 2013. Valla urged hospital officials to install a barrier or fencing on the structure to prevent future deaths, but no such barrier was ever built. Trial testimony showed that Valla also reported multiple patient safety issues, including anesthesia machines and defibrillators being used past the manufacturer’s stated end of life.

In May 2019, Valla took a medical leave of absence, citing depression and PTSD as a result of her experiences. Instead of providing a reasonable accommodation for her protected leave of absence, the hospital replaced her while she was on leave, intending to block her reinstatement.

After a five-week trial, the jury found that the hospital and its parent company had unlawfully retaliated against Valla and failed to accommodate her disability. The jury awarded her $27.5 million, comprising $5 million in economic damages (past and future lost wages and benefits) and $22 million for pain, suffering, and emotional distress.

‍“This verdict sends a powerful message: retaliation and indifference to mental health in healthcare settings can’t be tolerated,”

Valla’s attorney, David M. deRubertis, said after the verdict.

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