Civil rights attorneys filed a suit Thursday on behalf of a paraplegic who was abandoned on the street in Los Angeles still dressed in hospital clothes and without his wheelchair, on February 7.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court seeks unspecified punitive and compensatory damages against the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center on behalf of 42-year-old Gabino Olvera. The hospital was accused of alleged elder abuse, negligence and infliction of emotional distress.

Olvera was transported by the hospital’s van service to a Skid Row mission without a wheelchair or a walker. He returned to the hospital, as the shelter could not take care of him as they lack the facilities to deal with someone in his condition. There he spent eight hours in a wheelchair in the lobby before he was again taken by the van and left on the streets without his wheelchair. The complaint describes how Olvera scuttled from the van to the street on his hands, a colostomy bag leaking urine and a bag of belongings clenched in his teeth.

“Mr. Olvera had no choice but to physically drag himself along the gutter of the street with his belongings in a bag clenched in his teeth,” the lawsuit said, the Associated Press reported.

Olvera was brought to the hospital after an automobile accident, the complaint said. The hospital was accused that it failed to diagnose and treat him for a urinary tract infection or take into account apparent signs of mental illness.

“When you tell the average person this, they are completely shocked that a hospital would treat a human being in this way,” Hernan D. Vera, an attorney at Public Counsel and one of the plaintiff’s lawyers said, according to the local Long Beach Press-Telegram.

A number of Los Angeles hospitals have been involved in getting rid of indigent patients by dropping them off at homeless shelters. However, Olvera’s case became a national scandal because a security camera at the shelter caught him crawling in the gutter with a colostomy bag. According to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, another case like this happened in late 2006 when an elderly homeless woman, Carol Ann Reyes, suffering from dementia was dumped by a Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center van in front of the Union rescue mission. She was caught on videotape wearing only a hospital gown. The woman filed civil and criminal charges against Kaiser Foundation Hospitals.

“I think it’s clear with this case, coming on the heels of the Reyes case that we are not going away. We are going to pursue every instance of hospital dumping,” said ACLU legal director Mark Rosenbaum quoted by the LBPT.

The hospital called the lawsuit unnecessary in a statement released on Thursday. Its representatives said they would meet with Olvera’s lawyers for “extensive settlement discussions” to reach an agreement on the issue.

“The plight of homeless individuals and the provision of healthcare is a critical social issue, but the homeless problem can’t be resolved by HPMC alone. The solutions must come from government, but we are committed to doing our part. We have stated publicly since the day of this incident that HPMC would never condone dropping an individual at a location without their consent and where accommodations were not apparent,” the hospital’s statement said.

The case is scheduled for trial on April 15.