Verdict in Maya Kowalski Case: $220 Million+

I heard about the Netflix documentary, Taking Care of Maya. It's about a young girl named Maya Kowalski who had a rare syndrome which causes her pain without any injury.

A hospital decided that this diagnosis was false and that the parents were abusing the girl. They took the girl away and held her in the hospital against her will and would not allow her parents to see it.

The mother ultimately hanged herself.

Maya sued the hospital for false imprisonment, among other things.

She just won $221 million.

Netflix's Maya Kowalski breaks down in court as she WINS $220M lawsuit against 'dysfunctional' All Children's Hospital as jury finds her false imprisonment by medics drove her mom to suicide

Jurors ruled in favor of Maya Kowalski, 17, in her $220 million lawsuit

It was found that Johns Hopkins All Children's hospital callously dismissed Maya's debilitating condition and falsely claimed her mom made it up

Maya's mom, Beata, ultimately took her own life, with the jury finding the hospital's mistakes led to the tragedy

Jurors in the trial between Netflix teen Maya Kowalski and Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital have ruled in favor of Maya, finding the hospital liable of allegations including false imprisonment.

Kowalski broke down in tears as the verdict was read, with over $200 million in damages awarded to her which she will receive when she reaches 18-years-old.

The jury found that mistakes made by the hospital caused or were likely to have caused Kowalski's mother to kill herself, in a ruling that elicited a heartbreaking reaction from the courtroom.

The issue had been central to the trial, with Maya, her father Jack and brother Kyle suing JHACH in St Petersburg, Florida alleging that accusations 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 presented closing arguments on Tuesday with both sides agreeing it was important for 'closure.'

Maya, 17, was just 10 years old when she was removed by the state after doctors at the hospital accused her parents of faking symptoms for her rare condition - complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). During her three-month hospital stay, Beata was forbidden from seeing her.

The family argue that the grief stricken mom fell into a depression and ultimately hanged herself in the family garage but the Florida medical facility has vehemently denied these allegations and others set against them. The tragedy was later detailed in the Netflix documentary 'Taking Care of Maya.'

In its ruling on Thursday, the hospital was found liable for false imprisonment of Maya; battery of Maya; fraudulent billing of her father Jack; inflicting emotional distress on Beata; wrongful death claim for the estate of Beata; and intentionally inflicting emotional distress on Maya.

In a statement after the ruling was handed down, Howard Hunter, attorney from Hill Ward Henderson who represented Johns Hopkins in the case, told DailyMail.com that the hospital intends to appeal the decision.

'We thank the jury for their time and attention during this trial and intend to pursue an appeal based on clear and prejudicial errors throughout the trial and deliberate conduct by plaintiff's counsel that misled the jury,' the statement read.

The reading of the verdict:

Some doctors and "experts" are over-eager to accuse parents of child abuse and they're a horrible menace.

Hundreds of parents say kids wrongly taken from them after doctors misdiagnosed abuse "They made us feel like we were monsters," said a Florida mother who temporarily lost custody of her 4-month-old son based on a doctor's report.

Update: Now that I'm listening to the verdict, it sounds like she was only falsely imprisoned for three days. Maybe this is excessive.

I'm not sure what happened after that. Surely the mother didn't kill herself after the hospital held her daughter for just three days, did she?

And if she did -- seems like she was already mentally ill, doesn't it?

I don't know, I'm coming into this cold. I only heard about the documentary second-hand. It was never relayed to me that the period of false imprisonment was just three days.

Reading more into the article: There was more to it than three days. Maybe the three days of false imprisonment is the one thing they can sue for, and the jury is awarding her for all the things she couldn't sue for.

They took her off of ketamine, which had been controlling her pain, putting her through more pain.

The evidence that we've been able to put on through our defense case has shown that Maya came to us in a horrible condition on a number of dangerous and unnecessary drugs,' Shapiro, attorney for the hospital 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, walking in and out of court, going to homecoming and living a more normal teenage life.'

Anderson rebuffed the defense's narrative that Maya is doing much better after they showed pictures of her in court enjoying similar luxuries as a 'normal teen' including going out on Halloween and her homecoming dance.

'There's a base level of pain, but when you're in that much pain at different times it becomes, it's not as noticeable as a normal person, really,' Anderson said.

'You develop a high tolerance for it. CRPS patients always have a little bit of pain, but it does come and go, and this is one of the elusive and frankly frustrating things about the disease.'

Anderson argued that out of the five depositions made by Maya the defense had been picking snippets to portray Maya's life after hospitalization as 'normal.'

He pointed out that Maya 'almost died after one relapse' and she was sent to Arnold Palmer's Children's Hospital in Orlando where she was given a feeding tube because of the significant weight loss she experienced.

'The fact that they stood up for their rights to treat their own child with the best knowledge they could, with every bit of information they could, and they made the right choices,' Anderson said.

'So, the things that happened to them at Johns Hopkins are beyond belief, absolutely beyond belief, but we've proved them over and over again.'

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:24 PM

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