Adventist Health has struck an $18.5 million settlement resolving a lawsuit brought by former patients who alleged sexual abuse from an employed physical therapist.
The funds will be split evenly among seven anonymous women who brought the lawsuit in May 2025 (an eighth plaintiff had passed away since the suit was filed).
The alleged abuse centered on the system’s Adventist Health Sonora hospital and outpatient clinics and was said to occur as early as 2007 during encounters with Jason Elias, who is no longer employed at Adventist.
The settlement translates to more than $2.6 million per individual, “representing one of the nation’s largest per-plaintiff recoveries in a sexual abuse case involving a medical provider,” law firm Lewis & Llewellyn, which represented the plaintiffs, said in the announcement.
“Adventist Health had repeated opportunities to stop the abuse, but chose not to act,” Paul Llewellyn, a partner at the firm, said in Wednesday’s announcement of the settlement. “Multiple women told Adventist employees what happened to them. Not one of those reports went anywhere. This settlement reflects the devastating consequences when an institution fails to act on warnings and protect the people entrusted to its care.”
The women, in their complaint, said reports regarding Elias’ conduct during appointments were not appropriately acted upon by at least five health system employees. The complaint outlines “manipulative grooming” and abuse by Elias under the pretext of physical therapy, which sometimes extended beyond the care setting.
Elias was suspended in 2022 due to complaints of inappropriate sexual conduct, after which Adventist opened an internal investigation into his conduct.
“Adventist Health Sonora’s top priority is the care and safety of our patients, staff and community,” the system said in a statement to Fierce Healthcare. “When we received a formal complaint about this individual, he was suspended and stopped treating patients here. We investigated the allegations, ended his employment, and reported him to the Physical Therapy Board of California. The lawsuit has now been resolved.”
Adventist Health is a 27-hospital integrated nonprofit with more than 430 additional clinics across the West Coast and Hawaii. It employs over 38,000 people and reported $7.4 billion total revenue across 2025.
Elias was later employed at another physical therapy provider, Sonora Physical Therapy. He was hired there despite Adventist warning Sonora about the reason for his termination, according to the complaint, and during that period allegedly assaulted one of the plaintiffs who had first began seeing him at Adventist.
Elias has since lost his license to practice physical therapy in California and was recently convicted of a felony DUI, Lewis & Llewellyn said.
“The women’s bravery in coming forward exposed not only Elias’ conduct but also the institutional failures that allowed the danger to continue,” Erin Reding, an attorney at Lewis & Llewellyn, said in the announcement. “We know Elias abused other women in the community, and we encourage anyone who suffered mistreatment, or anyone with information about Elias’ abuse, to come forward.”
Fierce Healthcare has reached out to Sonora Physical Therapy for comment.