A 45-year-old mother from Mission Viejo with multiple sclerosis died from COVID because she was denied the coronavirus vaccine by her health care provider, and after falling ill was not given a monoclonal antibody treatment, attorneys for her family allege in a lawsuit filed this week.

A wrongful death and medical negligence lawsuit filed against Kaiser Permanente in Orange County Superior Court says medical workers providing care to Nerissa Regnier made false claims about the coronavirus vaccines and whether Regnier could receive them due to her MS treatment.

Regnier – a married mother of three – led an active life and was managing her MS, said Eric Dubin, one of the attorneys representing her family.

“Almost nobody even knew she had MS,” Dubin said. “She was living a normal, healthy life.”

Last February, Regnier was placed on a new regimen of medication, Dubin said, which suppressed her immune system. Regnier asked about getting one of the coronavirus vaccines, but was repeatedly told over several months that she could not get any of them because they contained a “live virus,” a contention her attorneys say was false.

“That is just simply wrong, and when you are immunocompromised you absolutely have to have the vaccine,” Dubin said. “She wanted it, she needed it.”

A line indicating Regnier shouldn’t receive any of the vaccines was also placed on her medical chart, Dubin said, so “every nurse who saw that would have told her the same thing.”

In August, Regnier emailed her neurologist, asking about the vaccines, the attorney said. The neurologist told her she had to get inoculated, but when Regnier went to Kaiser to get the vaccine she felt symptoms of the virus, and tested positive.

The family’s attorneys say the next mistake by medical providers at Kaiser was to give Regnier antibiotics and steroids, which they described as potentially harmful for someone in Regnier’s condition. The suit says Kaiser medical providers also denied Regnier monoclonal antibody treatment, which the family’s attorneys say could have saved her life.

After being denied the treatment at the Kaiser medical facility in Irvine, Regnier’s husband took her from the hospital and drove her to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, but doctors there told the family it was too late for Regnier to receive the treatment.

Doctors at Hoag stabilized Regnier, and she was taken back to Kaiser. She died on Dec. 16, survived by her husband, Devin Regnier, and her children, ages 14, 16 and 29.

“This is literally a broken family, it was so devastating,” Dubin said. “It was a one-two punch: Bad information to not get the vaccine, and then failure to save her life when she inevitably got COVID.”

Kaiser Permanente officials could not be reached for comment on Thursday. But in a previous statement, officials at Kaiser expressed their condolences to Regnier’s family.

In the statement, Kaiser officials said they couldn’t comment on the specific circumstances surrounding the care Regnier received, but wrote that COVID treatments “continue to rapidly evolve” and that “in consultation with each patient, we prescribe care that is intended to provide the best clinical outcomes based on current knowledge and their individual needs.”

Kaiser also wrote in its previous statement, “We have clearly communicated to our members, patients and the public that none of the available COVID-19 vaccines contain the live virus and they are safe and effective.” It wasn’t clear from the statement when Kaiser began communicating that message.

The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of monetary damages.

City News Service contributed to this report.

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