Samantha B. v. Aurora Vista Del Mar

FACTS

Aurora Vista Del Mar, LLC (Aurora) is a licensed acute psychiatric hospital. Aurora is wholly owned by Signature Healthcare Services, LLC (Signature). Both entities are wholly owned by Doctor Soon Kim, who owns 11 similar hospitals nationwide. Signature has a management agreement with Aurora. Among other tasks, Signature agreed to provide “[d]aily operational direction and management” and “[c]linical responsibility for all service programs.”

2 Plaintiff C.F. is no longer a party to this action. This court dismissed her appeal pursuant to the stipulation of the parties on October 18, 2021.

2. Aurora Hires Valencia In July 2011, Aurora hired Juan Valencia as a mental health worker. The duties of a mental health worker include seeing that patients do not harm themselves or others, keeping patients in a safe environment, and helping patients with daily living activities. Mental health workers are not licensed. When Valencia was hired, he was given a form in which he was asked whether he had been arrested for a crime requiring registration as a sex offender. He answered no. In fact, Valencia had been arrested in 1989 for sexual penetration with a foreign object (Pen. Code, §…