What happened to you at Vista Del Mar was not okay. A jury agreed.

Aurora Vista Del Mar Hospital is the psychiatric hospital on the hill in Ventura. Juan Valencia worked the units there as a mental health worker, and by the time he was done he had been arrested twice and had pleaded guilty to three charges involving patients. Three of those women took the hospital to trial and won more than thirteen million dollars; the hospital appealed and lost that too. Were you a patient there? Did you never come forward? Then this page is about you.

The Valencia cases were tried and won. What is open now is California's window for adult patients of a private hospital that covered up abuse, and it closes December 31, 2027. If you were there as an adult after 2009 and never sued, this is your door.

• Free
• Confidential
• No obligation
• You never pay a dollar

6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

This applies to you no matter what

• It was him, and you were never one of the three. The criminal case had three victims. Nobody has ever said there were only three.
• It was somebody else on staff. Fine. The verdict was never about one man. It was about a hospital that barely checked who it hired, never had enough people on the floor, and let a male worker take a female patient off alone for twenty minutes at a stretch.
• You told somebody, a nurse, a supervisor, and nothing came of it. The jury heard that story, and so, eventually, did Sacramento, which is why California reopened the deadline for people a hospital kept quiet.
• It was before Valencia's time, 2009, 2010. The new window reaches back that far for adults; for anyone who was a minor the calendar hardly matters.
• You were an adult then and figured the deadline passed a decade ago. It did. Then the legislature reopened it, through the end of 2027.
• You're asking for a sister, a mother, a friend who was there. Reach out anyway.

The Vista Del Mar record: the plea, the verdict, the appeal, and when

We didn't write what's below. A criminal court, a civil jury, a Court of Appeal and the reporters who covered them did, and we link to every one. We don't add to it.

We checked this on September 11, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from January 1, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Vista Del Mar lawsuit

The hospital, and Signature Healthcare Services, the private company that owns it and a chain of psychiatric hospitals like it. A worker who assaults a patient answers for himself, and Valencia did; a hospital whose hiring, staffing and supervision made him possible answers for everything he did, and a jury and an appeals court have already said so. That finding is what makes the new window matter: the cover-up is not something you would have to prove from scratch.

A different staff member, if that is your story, is a defendant too. And a hospital that has already lost once on these facts is not in a strong position to say it didn't know.

Your deadline: the cover-up window that closes at the end of 2027, and the rest of California's rules

Your situation still qualifies even if

• You never told a soul, or you told someone at the hospital and they wrote you off as a patient.
• You were medicated and the memory has holes in it. So were the three women who won.
• The hospital said it was consensual. It said that at trial, too. The jury did not agree.
• You were there because of something you did, and you figure that disqualifies you. It doesn't.
• You live somewhere else now. Most people do, by the time they're ready.

Locations covered

Aurora Vista Del Mar Hospital, 801 Seneca Street, Ventura · all units, including the adult and geriatric programs. A different Signature Healthcare hospital, Aurora Charter Oak in Covina, Aurora San Diego, Aurora Las Encinas in Pasadena? The questions still work. Answer them and say where.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

1. You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
2. A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
3. You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed California attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.