Sono Bello Lawsuits: Malpractice, Wrongful Death, and Arbitration

Sono Bello lawsuits number more than 60 medical malpractice and negligence cases filed against the country’s largest cosmetic surgery chain since April 2013, including at least 12 wrongful death claims and numerous suits alleging disfiguring injuries, sepsis, and botched liposuction and skin-removal procedures.¹ The claims center on how the company trains and credentials its surgeons, how it pays them, and how it sells procedures to patients who later say they were never warned about the real risks.

How Many Lawsuits, and What Kind

A joint investigation by KFF Health News and NBC News reviewed scores of malpractice and negligence suits filed against cosmetic surgery chains over the seven years leading up to 2025. Sono Bello was the primary focus. The reporting counted more than 60 malpractice cases against the company and its affiliates since 2013, with at least 19 of those filed since March 2023 alone.¹

Twelve of those cases are wrongful death actions. Of four wrongful death suits filed since May 2018, three settled under confidential terms and one remained pending as of mid-2025.¹ Sono Bello advertises that its more than 150 board-certified surgeons have performed over 300,000 procedures across roughly 100 U.S. locations, most of them laser liposuction, body contouring, and skin removal done under local anesthesia in office settings.²

What the Lawsuits Allege

Short “Fellowships” and Out-of-Specialty Surgeons

A common thread across the cases is Sono Bello’s approach to hiring. The company recruits physicians from more than half a dozen surgical specialties, not just plastic surgery, and puts them through an internal “fellowship” of six to eight weeks before letting them operate on cosmetic patients.¹ Traditional medical fellowships run at least a year and are accredited by recognized professional bodies; critics have challenged Sono Bello’s use of the term for a weeks-long course.³

Sono Bello also does not require its surgeons to hold local hospital privileges, which lawsuits say has left patients stranded when complications escalate beyond what an office can handle.⁴

Pay Tied to Patient BMI

Court records revealed a compensation system Sono Bello calls “surgical value units,” which pays its surgeons more for operating on patients with higher body mass indexes. Obesity is a recognized risk factor for surgical complications including infection and sepsis, and plaintiffs argue the structure pushes surgeons toward higher-risk patients.¹ Robert Centeno, Sono Bello’s medical director for the East region, responded that it would be “discriminatory” to deny patients care based on their BMI.

High-Pressure Sales

Multiple patients allege that consultations felt like sales pitches. Suits describe being told they were “perfect candidates” for surgery, being urged to commit financially on the spot, and hearing little about risks. Some patients financed procedures costing up to $20,000 through high-interest credit programs.⁵

Wrongful Death Cases

Aura Javellana (Bellevue, Washington)

The earliest publicly known death was that of Aura Javellana, 28, who paid $8,000 for liposuction on her abdomen and upper arms at Sono Bello’s Bellevue clinic in May 2009. She was found dead the next morning at a nearby hotel where she had been recovering. The King County Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death acute lidocaine intoxication.⁶

The suit against Sono Bello and Dr. Marco Sobrino alleged that Sobrino failed to track the amount of lidocaine solution administered and failed to monitor her afterward. Sono Bello settled for $1.8 million without admitting wrongdoing; the family reportedly turned down a higher amount that would have required confidentiality. Washington’s health department separately placed Sobrino on three years of probation, ordered 50 hours of continuing education, and fined him $5,000.⁷

Ohio License Revocation

In May 2023, the Ohio medical board revoked the license of a Sono Bello contract surgeon after three of her patients died, two of them at a Sono Bello office in the Cleveland area.³

Cynthia Burgess (Jacksonville, Florida)

Cynthia Burgess underwent a five-hour liposuction and AbEX procedure at Sono Bello’s Jacksonville location on May 22, 2025. She developed an infection and died on July 11, 2025, from a pulmonary embolism. Jacksonville attorney Seth Pajcic of Pajcic & Pajcic announced a malpractice lawsuit on her behalf in September 2025.⁸

Notable Injury Cases

Erin Schaeffer (Jacksonville, Florida)

Erin Schaeffer, who had previously lost 100 pounds, went to Sono Bello for skin removal. After a January 2024 liposuction, she returned on March 29, 2024 for a combined liposuction and AbEX mini-tummy tuck. Schaeffer alleges the anesthesia failed during that second procedure and describes the experience as being “skinned alive.” She developed a post-operative infection with fluid leaking from an open wound, was hospitalized for a week, and says she was left with permanent disfigurement and scarring in the pelvic region.⁸

Filed in Duval County Circuit Court against Sono Bello and Dr. Manuel Herrera, the suit accuses Herrera of performing procedures he was not trained or qualified to perform. Herrera is board-certified as an obstetrician-gynecologist, not a plastic surgeon. He completed Sono Bello’s internal fellowship and had acknowledged “limited knowledge on body sculpting” before it; the company gave him its 2023 “New Talent Award.”⁴ When Schaeffer needed hospital-level care, she says, Herrera told her he could not help because he was “an obstetrician, not a plastic surgeon, and didn’t have hospital privileges locally.”¹

An amended complaint added fraud allegations and a claim under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, and alleged that Sono Bello violated a Florida statute governing how much fat can be removed during an office-based procedure. Sono Bello and Herrera denied all allegations in a joint court filing.⁹

Shirley Webb (Las Vegas, Nevada)

Shirley Webb, 79, sued after developing sepsis following a December 2022 tummy tuck and liposuction performed by Dr. Charles Kim. Kim, a board-certified colorectal and general surgeon, had settled four prior malpractice cases and had been disciplined by the Nevada state medical licensing board in connection with a patient death; that discipline consisted of a $4,000 fine and a letter of reprimand, and he did not admit wrongdoing. Kim had completed Sono Bello’s six-to-eight-week fellowship between July and October 2022, just before Webb’s surgery.¹⁰ Webb’s case settled under confidential terms in early 2025.⁵

Marissa Edwards (San Diego, California)

Marissa Edwards sued over a 2022 Sono Bello procedure in San Diego that she alleged resulted in sepsis. The case settled under confidential terms in July 2025.⁵

Arbitration Clauses Keep Cases Private

Sono Bello’s pre-surgery contracts include mandatory arbitration clauses that force patients to resolve disputes in private arbitration rather than court. Many of the resulting settlements are confidential, which keeps details of alleged injuries and payouts out of public records.¹

No class action lawsuit has been filed or certified against Sono Bello for medical malpractice claims. The cases proceed one patient at a time, and many end in confidential settlements.³

Why Civil Lawsuits Are the Main Check

No federal agency tracks complication or injury rates at cosmetic surgery clinics, and no public database consolidates a physician’s full practice history across states. Professional societies do not recognize or accredit the short internal training programs that chains market as fellowships.³ State medical boards are the primary disciplinary bodies, but their investigations are typically confidential until a formal complaint or license action, which can take years.¹¹ In that vacuum, civil malpractice suits have become the main way injured patients pursue accountability from these chains.¹²

Sono Bello’s Response

Sono Bello and its surgeons have denied the allegations in court filings. A company spokesperson said in response to the Jacksonville cases that “every Sono Bello physician is a board-certified or board-eligible surgeon” and that all centers are “fully accredited, state-of-the-art facilities that meet or exceed every state-mandated standard.”⁸ The company says it maintains formal admitting agreements with local hospitals in Florida.⁹

Centeno framed the litigation as a function of volume. With more than 300,000 procedures performed, he said, “it would be natural and understandable to know that at some point during that process, that a patient has actually sued us.” He also called past discipline “not, in fact, disqualifying,” saying most doctors learn from sanctions and counseling.³ The company argues that complications are a known risk of any surgery and that results are never guaranteed.¹

1
KFF Health News. Cosmetic Surgery Patients Allege Disfiguring Injuries
2
Sono Bello. How Does Sono Bello Work
3
NBC News. Cosmetic Surgery Chain Doctors Lawsuits Allege Injuries and Pain
4
Miami Herald. Cosmetic Surgery Patients Allege Disfiguring Injuries
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WUSF. Patients in Florida Allege Cosmetic Surgeries Led to Disfiguring Injuries
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Munley Law. Washington Cosmetic Clinic to Pay $1.8 Million in Wrongful Death Suit
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Becker’s ASC Review. Washington Surgeon Suspended Over Patient Death From Anesthetic
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News4JAX. Attorneys Announce Two Malpractice Lawsuits Against Well-Known Cosmetic Surgery Center in Jacksonville
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Action News JAX. Jacksonville Attorney Details Two Pending Lawsuits Against Cosmetic Surgery Chain Sono Bello
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KFF Health News. Doctors, Clinics, Cosmetic Surgeries – Pain, Injury, Discipline, Malpractice Lawsuits
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KFF Health News. Body Shops Cosmetic Surgery Injuries Deaths Investigation
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HealthLeaders Media. Cosmetic Surgeries Led to Disfiguring Injuries Patients Allege