82-year-old woman dies waiting for AC repairs in sweltering home, Nevada lawsuit says
When Virginia DeSapio called her nephew to wish him a happy birthday, she mentioned having problems with her air conditioning unit.
Days later, a neighbor found the 82-year-old dead in her sweltering Nevada home next to her beloved dog, Jesse, according to lawyers for her family.
Her nephews have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against DeSapio’s home warranty company, Fidelity National, saying the company failed to repair their aunt’s air conditioning unit in a timely manner, despite her filing an emergency work order as temperatures in Las Vegas were consistently well above 100 degrees.
“This gross negligence, it’s beyond frustrating,” one of her nephews, Gregory Kelley, told McClatchy News.
Fidelity National did not respond to a request for comment.
Extreme heat
DeSapio told Fidelity National Home Warranty Company that her air conditioning unit was broken and needed repairs on Aug. 11, according to the lawsuit filed on March 9.
Technicians with the company did not start the repairs within 24 hours as required by Nevada law, and the next day told her that her request had been “put on hold,” according to the lawsuit.
When she called one of her nephews to wish him a happy birthday on Aug. 16, she mentioned she was having problems with her air conditioning, Kelley said. Because Henderson, Nevada — where she lived — was experiencing a heat wave, her family members started to worry about her and called a neighbor to do a welfare check a few days later, Kelley said.
A neighbor went to her house on Aug. 22 and found her and her dog, Jesse, dead, Kelley said.
DeSapio’s death certificate says she died of “environmental heat stress” due to “prolonged exposure to elevated ambient temperatures,” the lawsuit says. She also had lung cancer, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which cited the Clark County coroner’s office.
Fidelity National did not complete repairs on DeSapio’s air conditioning unit until Sept. 5, around two weeks after her death and 26 days after she filed the initial complaint with the company, the lawsuit says.
Nevada law gives warranty companies a three-day period to complete emergency repairs, according to the lawsuit.
Fidelity National said its reasons for the delay were “technician researching pricing” and “parts on order,” the lawsuit says.
Kelley said an investigation revealed the company told DeSapio a necessary part for her air conditioning unit wasn’t available. Lawyers later learned the part was available, and the company was trying to order it cheaper from somewhere else.
“This is a case where Fidelity National put the price of a part over the value of human life,” the law firm representing DeSapio’s family, Christian Morris Trial Attorneys, said in a statement. “Virginia paid her premiums and trusted that Fidelity would hold up their end of the bargain. Their negligence is unacceptable and is also in direct violation of Nevada law, which recognizes the emergent need for air conditioning systems to be repaired.”
“Aunt Ginna”
Kelley described DeSapio as a “wonderful person” whom he and his siblings affectionately called “Aunt Ginna.”
“She was there for holidays and graduations, Christmas cards and gifts and telephone calls,” he said. “When I would visit her, she would make the best iced tea I ever had in my life.”
DeSapio loved animals and was an active member of her community, he said. She was known to walk her dog around the neighborhood multiple times a day.
She also loved to follow the stock market and keep up with current affairs, he said.
She kept her house “immaculate,” and Kelley said he has many happy memories of playing with toys in her home while she and his parents played cards at the table.
“Aunt Ginna was just a really wonderful person,” he said. “A wonderful neighbor, a great aunt.”
The lawsuit is seeking damages in excess of $15,000, but Kelley said he also hopes to get justice for his aunt.
“We want transparency, accountability, justice,” he said. “And we want to make sure this doesn’t happen again to anyone else. There’s just absolutely no excuse for this.”
Kelley’s attorney, Christian Morris, said she hopes to hold Fidelity National and other companies like it accountable for not following the law and not honoring their commitments to their customers.
“They have to make sure that people’s homes are habitable if they have taken their premium payment and promised to do so,” she said. “They had no intention whatsoever of living up to their end of the bargain.”
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