A jury in Florida ordered a hospital to pay $261 million in damages to a family after the parents were accused of abusing their daughter and barred from seeing her during months of treatment. Their story was chronicled in the Netflix documentary “Take Care of Maya.”
Jurors in Florida’s 12th Judicial Circuit in Sarasota County found against Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, court documents issued Thursday show, ordering $211 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages for false imprisonment, battery, medical negligence and other charges.
Damages were awarded for infliction of emotional distress on the daughter in question, Maya Kowalski, and her mother, Beata Kowalski, who died by suicide in 2017. Maya’s father, Jack Kowalski, was named as a plaintiff in the case representing Maya and his wife’s estate, court documents showed.
“For the first time, I feel like I got justice,” Maya Kowalski, now 17, said in a statement to reporters outside of the courtroom after the decision.
Mr. Kowalski said the case was about parental decision-making in the care of their children. “Parents have rights and they make the decision,” he said.
Howard Hunter, a lawyer for All Children’s, said that the hospital would appeal the decision. In a statement after the verdict, he said the hospital had followed its protocol for when it suspects child abuse.
“We are determined to defend the vitally important obligation of mandatory reporters to report suspected child abuse and protect the smallest and most vulnerable among us,” he said.
The story of the Kowalskis was reported in The Cut last year and was the subject of the Netflix documentary “Take Care of Maya.” The film examined Maya’s stay in the hospital from Oct. 7, 2016, through Jan. 13, 2017, touching on her rare pain syndrome and a system that mandates hospitals to report suspected abuse.
According to the family’s complaint, Maya was 10 years old in 2016 when she was treated at All Children’s Hospital for complex regional pain syndrome.
On Oct. 7, 2016, she was rushed to the emergency room because of her extreme pain, it said. Maya was then evaluated by a child-welfare agency doctor who specialized in detecting child abuse. Subsequently, under an order issued by the state, she remained in the hospital for about three months, despite the family’s attempts to get her out, the complaint said.
While she was there, medical orders included “isolating” her and restricting family visits, the complaint said. It said she was touched against her will or without parental consent and put under video surveillance; her “symptoms worsened: her lesions reappeared, her legs atrophied, she regressed and became wheelchair-bound.”
In a telephone interview on Friday, Ethen Shapiro, another lawyer representing the hospital, said that All Children’s had been carrying out the state’s orders in restricting visitation. The Florida Dependency Court, which handles matters of child abuse and neglect, restricted visitation after deciding on Oct. 14, 2016, that Maya should be sheltered.
“They made a determination that there was a reasonable suspicion of medical child abuse,” he said, adding that the hospital had no discretion about where it could send her after that. “It is not All Children’s Hospital that is obstructing visitation.”
An attorney for the Kowalskis, Jennifer Anderson, said that Maya’s parents had been following orders from a doctor who had previously treated her pain syndrome, and the complaint said that Ms. Kowalski had experienced “Acute Stress Reaction and Grief reaction” after being accused of child abuse and having her daughter taken away.
“In short, the actions of the Defendants and their agents drove both parents, but especially Beata as she was also accused of abusing her beloved daughter, inexorably towards the most extreme of human behavior,” the complaint read.
Mr. Kowalski was eventually allowed to have visitations.
In a Dependency Court hearing on Jan. 6, 2017, Beata Kowalski saw her daughter in person for the first time since Maya was admitted to All Children’s Hospital, an attorney for the Kowalskis said. Maya was using a wheelchair “and in worse shape” than when she entered the hospital three months before.
Less than 48 hours later, Ms. Kowalski took her own life, the complaint said.
The court entered an order on Jan. 13 discharging Maya Kowalski from the hospital to her father’s custody.
Ms. Anderson said on Friday that the jury’s decision was “vindication for the family and what they went through.”
Mr. Shapiro said he expected the appeal process to start around the end of the year or early 2024. He said the jury award would not be paid until the appeal process is over.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
