Jurors in the trial between Netflix teenager Maya Kowalski and Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital have ruled in favor of Maya, finding the hospital liable on charges including false imprisonment.
Kowalski burst into tears as the verdict was announced. She was awarded over $200 million in damages, which she will receive when she turns 18.
The jury concluded that errors by the hospital led or likely led to Kowalski’s mother taking her own life. The verdict sparked a heartbreaking reaction in the courtroom.
The issue was at the heart of the trial when Maya, her father Jack and her brother Kyle sued JHACH in St. Petersburg, Florida, claiming that allegations of child abuse against Maya’s mother Beata led to her taking her own life in 2017.
The trio were emotional as their attorney and the defense made closing arguments Tuesday, with both sides agreeing it was important for “closure.”
Maya, 17, was just 10 years old when she was deported by the state after doctors at the hospital accused her parents of faking symptoms of her rare condition – complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). During her three-month hospital stay, Beata was forbidden from seeing her.
The family argues that the grieving mother fell into depression and eventually hanged herself in the family’s garage, but the Florida medical facility has vehemently denied this and other allegations made against her. The tragedy was later detailed in the Netflix documentary Taking Care of Maya.
Thursday’s ruling blamed the hospital for the false imprisonment of Maya; Battery of Maya; fraudulent billing by her father Jack; inflicting emotional distress on Beata; Wrongful Death Claim of Beata’s Estate; and intentionally causing emotional distress to Maya.
Maya Kowalski’s landmark trial against Johns Hopkins Hospital ended Thursday, with the jury ruling in her favor and awarding millions of dollars in damages
The 17-year-old burst into tears as the verdict was announced
The Kowalski family files a $220 million lawsuit against Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, where Maya Kowalski (left) was held as a child after staff suspected she was a victim of “medical child abuse.” become.
Why did Maya Kowalski and her family sue Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital?
Maya Kowalski and her family filed a $220 million lawsuit in October 2018, accusing the Florida medical facility, Maya’s social worker Cathi Bedy and Dr. Sally Smith and her employer, Suncoast Center, sued.
In December 2021, the family settled with Smith and Suncoast for $2.5 million and the Kowalski family dropped their case against Bedy shortly before the trial began. It remains unclear whether a settlement was brokered.
In 2016, a judge ordered Maya to be held at the medical facility under state custody while child abuse allegations against her parents were investigated.
At the time, hospital staff assumed Beata had suffered from “Münchausen-by-proxy,” or medical child abuse.
Munchausen-by-proxy is a mental illness and a form of child abuse in which a child’s caregiver, usually a mother, either fakes symptoms or induces real symptoms to create the impression that the child is sick.
For eight weeks, jurors heard from the Kowalskis, doctors, nurses and experts in the $220 million lawsuit that was the focus of the harrowing Netflix documentary “Take Care of Maya.”
Over eight weeks, twelve jurors in the trial heard interviews with the Kowalski family, hospital staff and experts. Six jurors decided in favor of Kowalski.
The Kowalski family claimed the hospital took Maya for medical reasons, citing examples of assaults that included “stripping” her down to a sports bra and shorts to take photos of the lesions, as well as “hugging, kissing and holding her.” “ without their parents’ permission while in their care.
The hospital was charged with false imprisonment, assault, medical negligence, fraudulent billing, survivor’s claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress (estate of Beata Kowalski), wrongful death claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress resulting in death, and Maya’s claim for infliction of emotional distress.
After jury instructions were read, one juror was medically dismissed after a defense request to appoint the juror as a replacement was denied.
Why was Maya Kowalski at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital?
Maya was brought to JHACH in October 2016 when she experienced a CRPS flare-up, an illness diagnosed by a doctor not affiliated with the Florida Institute.
Maya took the stand and told the jury that her condition left her in excruciating pain, often screaming and at times unable to walk.
She said she received ketamine for pain management and even fell into a ketamine coma after the diagnosis and before arriving at JHACH in Mexico.
At the time, she claimed the ketamine treatment worked and she had seen dramatic improvement until the rare disease’s outbreak in 2016.
When Maya was nine years old, she was diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome and prescribed ketamine to manage her pain.
Multiple witnesses, including JHACH health professionals, claimed during the trial that Beata exhibited signs of Munchausen’s by proxy and that Maya’s perceived CRPS symptoms were precipitated by her mother.
The now 17-year-old was diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) at age 9, but was hospitalized in October 2016 at age 10 with severe pain
Munchausen by proxy is a mental disorder in which an abusive parent or caregiver inflicts or inflicts an illness on a person under their car, often the parent’s own child who is not actually sick.
During the trial, the defense accused Beata of giving her daughter unsafe doses of ketamine and shared emails that Beata wrote to herself in 2015, from Maya’s perspective, to prove their point.
“I have a very high tolerance for drugs, if I were a horse I would already be in a coma or dead,” Beata wrote in an email from Maya’s perspective that was presented to the court.
“But with a girl with RSD things are completely different, my metabolism is super fast.”
“My mom says I’m not a cheap date and my dad’s response was that he feels deeply sorry for the ‘lucky man’ who will marry me one day :).”
Beata wrote the emails in November 2015 when she and her husband, Jack Kowalski, traveled to Mexico with Maya to treat her pain during a ketamine-induced coma.
Both parents claimed the treatment was working until Maya suffered an illness flare-up in 2016 and were subsequently admitted to JHACH.
In another email detailing Maya’s debilitating pain when she awoke from the coma, Beata wrote: “I literally wanted to die again, I felt terrible.” I really didn’t think I would have that day would survive.’
Beata documented Maya’s ketamine coma in her emails, which the defense said undermined plaintiffs’ arguments that the treatments were safe and effective.
Maya’s mother Beata (right) took her own life after she was diagnosed with depression and an adjustment disorder after being separated from Maya for almost three months
Maya’s father Jack addressed Beata’s emails in court last week, saying he believed they were an attempt by Beata to record Maya’s experiences.
“After seeing the emails, I realized that’s probably why she did it,” he said.
“I come from a family with eight children. My mom made a baby book for all of us, and in the baby books it starts with “I got my first haircut” or “I crawled on this or that date.”‘ When Beata and I got married, she had seen my baby book and thought that was a great idea.
In his testimony, Jack explained that Beata had created baby books with similar first-person narratives for Maya and her son Kyle.
He believes the emails were a similar attempt to document first-person memories for Maya to look back on on her journey to better health.
“She speaks for the child and that’s what my mother did,” Jack explained.
Why did hospital staff raise concerns about child abuse?
The hospital’s defense argued that the trial reflected hospital staff’s responsibility to report suspected child abuse to authorities.
Maya was released from her parents’ care after hospital staff became suspicious of the dosage of ketamine her mother was desperate to give her for the excruciating chronic pain.
The Florida Department of Children and Families and a state judge confirmed hospital staff’s suspicions of “medical child abuse” and placed Maya under the care of the Florida Department of Children and Families. She was housed at the center.
The hospital’s defense focused on staff as mandatory reporters, who are required by state law to call the abuse hotline if they have “reasonable cause.”
Shapiro previously explained that the decision to remove Maya was made by the child welfare system, not the medical facility.
Dr. Kirkpatrick told the court that he discussed his prescription of ketamine therapy to Kowalski with staff at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital
The hospital released a statement to saying, “Our priority at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital is always the safety and privacy of our patients and their families.”
“As a result, we follow strict federal privacy laws that limit the amount of information we can release about any given case.”
“Our first responsibility is always to the child placed in our care.” Our employees are required by law to notify the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) if they suspect abuse or neglect.
“It is DCF and a judge – not Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital – who will investigate the situation and make the final decision on what course of action is in the best interest of the child.”
“We are committed to preventing any chilling effect on reporting suspected child abuse to protect the most vulnerable among us.”
What were the closing statements of the almost two-month trial?
The Kowalski family claimed that the power of the large hospital system combined with the power of the state left them helpless.
They further claim that the separation caused severe emotional distress for both Maya and her mother, who hanged herself in her garage in January 2017 after not seeing her daughter for months.
The lawsuit also details Kowalski’s claim that the hospital billed his insurance company thousands of dollars for CRPS treatments even though staff claimed Maya did not suffer from it.
In his closing statements Tuesday, Greg Anderson, representing the family, fired back vehemently, calling the hospital “dysfunctional.”
“This is Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, it really is,” Anderson said in court.
“It’s a company that retaliates against its own employees when they bring things to light that are negative and retaliates against anyone, any parent, who decides to do something different.”
Greg Anderson, the family’s attorney, fired back vehemently, accusing JHACH of being “dysfunctional” and claiming there was no oversight of Maya’s treatment while in their care
Ethen Shapiro, an attorney for the hospital, tore apart the seven allegations against the medical facility and urged the jury to listen to the facts and not make a verdict based on compassion
“This case is about an organization that is so screwed up that they actually think it’s a good idea to force parents to accept their ways, and if the parents won’t, they have to find other ways to accept them punish.”
Anderson claimed that there had to be a “captain of the ship,” “and there never was.”
“The way this hospital operated was completely dysfunctional,” he said.
“No one looked, no one paid attention to how this child was being cared for, no one paid attention to how their own staff behaved, and it wasn’t just one thing.”
Ethen Shapiro, an attorney for the hospital, tore apart the seven allegations against the medical facility and urged the jury to listen to the facts and not make a verdict based on compassion.
“The most unfortunate thing about this case is the headline: Kowalskis against all children, we were never against the Kowalski family,” Shapiro said.
“The reason All Children’s did what it did, the reason All Children’s tried to comfort Maya, the reason All Children’s tried to put her on a safe medical path is because of the loving and caring My client’s providers and hospital believed in a better future for her.
“If they could rid her of the unnecessary medications that are being administered to her in dangerous quantities.” Period. End of the story.
Maya did not attend the hearing during her bombshell trial because her lawyers said she was too ill. Lawyers submitted photographic evidence showing them celebrating Halloween (pictured)
Maya, who was sitting in the back of a limousine, also attended her homecoming. Defense attorneys said it was evidence she was capable of living the life of a normal teenager
These photos were brought up again in the defense’s closing argument
Shapiro stressed to jurors that if there was any reason to pay punitive damages to the Kowalski family, it would be, but he vehemently denied the allegations against his client.
“There is nothing outrageous that the hospital has ever done, there is no reason to consider punitive damages, your work can end with your considerations.”
“What we need in this courtroom is closure for everyone.”
According to the Pinellas County complaint, Beata died by suicide due to the unrest caused at the hospital.
“The defendants have imprisoned Maya [Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg] without legal justification,” the lawsuit says.
Throughout the trial, the hospital vehemently denied the allegations and reiterated this defense in its closing statements.
“The evidence we were able to present in our defense case showed that Maya came to us in terrible condition with a variety of dangerous and unnecessary medications,” Shapiro, the hospital’s attorney, said during the trial.
“We were able to wean her off those drugs and get her to a place where she can be like you see her today: going in and out of court, going to homecoming and living a more normal teenage life.”
Anderson rejected the defense’s account that Maya was doing much better after showing pictures of her in court enjoying similar luxuries as a “normal teenager,” including a Halloween night out and her homecoming dance.
“There’s a baseline level of pain, but when you’re in that much pain at different times, it’s actually not as noticeable as a normal person,” Anderson said.
“You develop a high tolerance for it. CRPS patients always have a little bit of pain, but it comes and goes, and that’s one of the most elusive and frankly frustrating things about the disease.”
Anderson argued that the defense cherry-picked excerpts from Maya’s five statements to portray Maya’s post-hospitalization life as “normal.”
He pointed out that Maya “nearly died after a relapse” and she was taken to Arnold Palmer’s Children’s Hospital in Orlando, where she was given a feeding tube due to significant weight loss.
“The fact that they stood up for their right to treat their own child with the best knowledge possible, with all the information possible, and that they made the right decisions,” Anderson said.
“So the things that happened to them at Johns Hopkins are incredible, absolutely incredible, but we have proven them time and time again.”