Law firm anticipates another stay in Dani Marie Schofield’s case; three former RRMC patients named in newest lawsuits have died

By Buffy Pollock, Rogue Valley Times

A half-dozen new civil lawsuits seeking $49.8 million in damages from Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center and former nurse Dani Marie Schofield have been filed since last Monday in Jackson County Circuit Court.

Medford law firm Andersen & Lindhorst P.C. filed the six newest cases.

Attorney Marco Boccato said the firm expected to file a seventh case — seeking more than $7 million on behalf of the estate of a former patient who has since died — by end of day Friday, bringing the total number of lawsuits to 11 filed in connection to a criminal drug-diversion investigation that occurred between July 2022 and July 2023. In total, the civil cases add up to more than $500 million, with all naming Schofield as a defendant along with Asante, except for two cases.

The case first made headlines in December 2023 when Medford police reported the agency was investigating claims that a former employee at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center stole controlled substances that were prescribed to ICU patients, which “resulted in adverse patient care.”

Former patients — and family members of patients who died — reported at the time that the hospital made calls to inform them that a nurse was believed to have swapped pain medication for ICU patients with non-sterile tap water, resulting in infections that had affected patient outcome.

Schofield was arrested June 13, 2024, more than 11 months after leaving her job at the Medford hospital. Schofield — who posted 10% of her $4 million bail and is out of jail awaiting trial — was indicted by a Jackson County Grand Jury on 44 second-degree assault charges under Measure 11. Victims named in the case include former patients who survived their ordeal and others who did not.

The first civil case to be filed, by Idiart Law Group in Central Point on behalf of the estate of 65-year-old Horace “Buddy” Wilson, was filed in February 2024 and seeks $11.5 million in damages.

Wilson, a father of six and founder of Decibel Farms in Jacksonville, was admitted to RRMC Jan. 27, 2022, with broken ribs and a lacerated spleen after falling from a ladder. Following a splenectomy days later, Wilson developed a series of life-threatening infections and died Feb. 25, 2022, five months earlier than the oldest charge listed in a criminal case filed against Schofield.

The largest case filed to date, seeking $303 million on behalf of 21 former patients — or their families — was filed in September by Shlesinger & deVilleneuve in Medford. That suit does not name Schofield as a defendant.

In another civil suit filed by Black, Chapman, Peterson & Stevens Attorneys in November 2024 that seeks $22.5 million on behalf of three former patients, Schofield also is not named as a defendant.

Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Bloom issued a stay in recent months in the two cases, filed by Idiart Law and Shlesinger & deVilleneueve, preventing evidence gathering in civil cases filed against Schofield, to protect her Fifth Amendment rights, pending the outcome of her criminal case.

Boccato said his firm anticipates that defense attorneys would move for a stay in the newly filed cases, which his firm will object to.

Patients listed in the newly filed cases, according to court documents, suffered “uncontrolled pain” and “life threatening infection” caused by waterborne bacteria.

Plaintiffs named in the newly filed cases include a man admitted to the hospital for surgery to remedy obstructive sleep apnea, another who suffered leg and foot injuries after a motorcycle crash and one who contracted an infection after an appendectomy.

Three of the seven new patients named have since died and are represented by their estates.

Boccato said victims were entitled to have evidence gathered from the Medford hospital, which has been largely silent since the investigation was first announced.

“Mrs. Schofield does have rights under the Fifth Amendment, and those need to be protected, but we want to get into what was happening at Asante during the time in question. This was not an isolated incident. It went on for days, months, years even,” Boccato told the Rogue Valley Times Friday.

“We want to look at, ‘What were Asante’s policies and procedures and how were they investigating these, for lack of a better term, poisonings, that were happening at one of their hospitals?’”

Boccato said it was “a little bit scary because Asante has been in control of all the information.”

“ICU patients are some of the most vulnerable people in the hospital. … There are just a lot of unanswered questions and we think we can look for answers to some of those questions without violating anyone’s rights,” he said.

“Schofield did some horrible things,” Boccato said, “but it’s akin to a bank vault being left open.

“If it’s sitting wide open, people are going to walk in and take money,” he said. “There should have been something that stopped this from happening, and we think the victims have a right to know, ‘What were the conditions that allowed this to go on for so long?’”

Reach reporter Buffy Pollock at 458-488-2029 or bpollock@rv-times.com. Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal. This story first appeared in the Rogue Valley Times.