The family of an elderly California woman is suing a hospital in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, claiming the woman was declared dead prematurely and froze to death.

Maria de Jesus Arroyo, 80, was pronounced dead in July 2010 at White Memorial Center in Boyle Heights after having a heart attack, the Los Angeles Times reports.

When morticians received her corpse a few days later, they found her facedown, with her nose broken and cuts and bruises on her face, which were so severe that they could not be covered with makeup. Her family alleges that she "eventually woke up" after being pronounced dead, and injured herself trying to escape the hospital.

On Wednesday, the 2nd District Court of Appeals overturned a trial judge's earlier decision to throw out the lawsuit that alleges the hospital declared Arroyo dead by mistake, then froze her while she was still living.

The trial judge sided with the hospital's lawyers, saying that the suit was filed too late; the statute of limitations after the incident was one year.

The district court revived the lawsuit, and found that the family could not have known that Arroyo may have been prematurely declared dead and frozen alive until the pathologist gave his opinion in December 2011.

In the pathologist's expert opinion, he said that the injuries Arroyo sustained most likely occurred while she was alive, and that she had been "frozen alive." Court records show that he claimed she woke up, and "damaged her face and turned herself face down as she struggled unsuccessfully to escape her frozen tomb."

The hospital has not addressed the family's allegation that Arroyo was declared deceased prematurely.

The case is now going to the L.A. County Superior Court.

A representative at White Memorial could not immediately be reached for comment, according to the L.A. Times.