The family of a doctor who died at a Seminole County senior living home is suing the facility for wrongful death — alleging his caregiver was asleep in a car after smoking marijuana and missed the doctor’s calls for help.
Dr. Periakaruppa Chockalingam, an Indian immigrant who spent 45 years as a cardiologist in Sebring, died at The Addison of Oviedo senior assisted living facility on Dec. 15. at the age of 81. His wife Mallika filed a lawsuit against the facility’s operators — Sonida Oviedo, LLC and Capital Senior Living, Inc. — on Wednesday saying her husband’s death was preventable and caused by gross neglect.
“We are bringing this lawsuit because Dr. Chockalingam’s death was not an accident, but rather it was the foreseeable result of chronic understaffing, inadequate training, and a pattern of neglect the facility had been cited for repeatedly,” said Geoff Moore, one of the family’s attorneys, at a Thursday news conference in Orlando.
The lawsuit says Chockalingam, affectionately known to his patients as “Dr. Chock,” was found unresponsive in his room at the facility by his assigned caregiver after suffering “a prolonged cardiac event.” He had activated his emergency pendant four times between 4:34 a.m. and 5:07 a.m. that December morning, but was only found at 5:59 a.m.
911 was contacted at 6:06 a.m. Dispatch instructed facility staff to find a defibrillator, but none could be located, according to the suit. It also says “CPR was delayed and/or performed ineffectively for only two minutes.” Emergency services arrived shortly afterwards, and Chockalingam was pronounced dead at 6:26 a.m.
The suit says the cardiac event would have been prevented if staff had intervened earlier.
At the news conference, Chockalingham’s son Kannan said it’s hard for him to put into words how it feels knowing his father was calling for help and no one came.
“He spent his whole life caring for others, as a doctor, a father, and a friend,” he said. “We trusted this facility to show him the same care and respect, and they failed him in the worst way. He died waiting, alone.”
When an Orlando Sentinel reporter contacted The Addison of Oviedo by phone Thursday, an employee who answered asked the reporter not to call the facility again and hung up.
Chockalingham’s caregiver, Brandon Jeremiah Lewis, was arrested later that day by Oviedo police on charges of elder neglect, possession of marijuana and making false statements to police under oath, according to his arrest report.
Lewis initially told police who responded to the scene that he had checked on Chockalingham three times during the night, including at 5 a.m., and that he found him asleep each time before finding him around 6:00 a.m. partially off his bed with his neck and head resting on the lift assist attached to the bed. As a detective was about to leave the scene, Lewis told them he needed “to confess something,” the arrest report said.
He told the detective he had taken an unofficial break around 4:20 a.m. and set a 30-minute timer on his phone before falling asleep in his car. He woke up around 5:40 a.m. and saw on his work device that Chockalingham had requested emergency help. He then went inside and found Chockalingham, the report shows.
During a search of Lewis’ car, police found burnt marijuana cigarettes, a grinder and a glass jar containing marijuana, according to the report. When police asked if he had been smoking marijuana that night, Lewis nodded his head yes.
But prosecutors decided not to file any charges against Lewis. Records requested from the Florida 18th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office show prosecutors made their decision because the local medical examiner’s office said Chockalingham’s death was natural.
The medical examiner’s office could not say Lewis’ actions contributed to the death in any way and was unable to determine that there was any injury that was a result of anything other than natural aging, according to the prosecutors’ records.
Moore, the Chockalingham family’s attorney, said the medical examiner’s role is to determine the physiological cause of death for official records, not to decide whether timely care could have prevented it, and that their finding doesn’t address whether Chockalingham’s death was preventable.
Moore also said evidence in the case includes official state investigative findings of serious violations under Florida law at the facility and sworn admissions from staff of sleeping on duty and falsifying records.
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Kannan Chockalingam, the son of Periakaruppa Chockalingam, listens to attorney Spencer Payne —holding up state documents— at a press conference at Moore Payne law firm in Orlando, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. The family of the elder Chockalingam is suing The Addison of Oviedo for negligence after he died at the assisted living facility in December. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
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