(CNN) Two Chicago families have sued the city and a hospital after an injured patient was incorrectly identified, and people who did not know him were given the decision to take him off life support.

A wrongful death lawsuit accuses the hospital and city of being negligent and inflicting intentional emotional distress on the two families by failing to properly identify the patient. The plaintiffs are seeking more than $50,000 from each defendant.

Mercy Hospital declined to comment on Thursday. A spokesperson for the City of Chicago and Chicago police did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.

Chicago police incorrectly identified a nude man with facial injuries they found unresponsive in late April as Alfonso Bennett, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Circuit Court of Cook County. Officials at Mercy Hospital & Medical Center then told Bennett's sisters the injured man was their brother.

When the sisters saw the man in the hospital, they "continually and repeatedly expressed their serious doubts" that he was actually their brother, the lawsuit said. But hospital staff told them repeatedly that they just didn't recognize him because of his facial injuries and because they were struggling to come to terms with a difficult situation, according to the suit.

Read More