EXCLUSIVE: Netflix’s Maya Kowalski information legal grievance that she was ‘sexually abused at Johns Hopkins All Kids’s hospital’ – as she wins bombshell $261 million lawsuit towards Florida facility

Netflix’s Maya Kowalski has filed a legal grievance claiming she was ‘sexually  abused at Johns Hopkins All Kids’s hospital’ after profitable a landmark lawsuit towards the Florida facility for greater than $261 million in damages.

Jurors this week dominated in favor of the teenager, whose story is the topic of the bombshell Netflix documentary ‘Take Care of Maya,’ and located that the JHACH had falsely imprisoned her – resulting in the suicide of her mom Beata Kowalski in 2017 after she was banned from visiting. 

The hospital has vehemently denied the allegations and is looking for to attraction the decision after six jurors took shut to a few days to pore over mountains of proof.

Talking to DailyMail.com solely, the household’s lawyer, Greg Anderson, has now revealed that Maya filed a legal grievance with Pinellas County Sheriff’s Workplace on Friday.

‘Maya Kowalski filed legal fees this morning with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Division involving an assault and battery at Johns Hopkins All Kids’s Hospital within the interval of roughly October 8 – 13 of 2016,’ Anderson mentioned.

‘It is unclear who the assailant was though my consumer was in a position to establish him with nice specificity by way of top, weight, hair coloration, clothes – he did have a lab coat on, he did have a stethoscope round his shoulders.

‘Though we won’t make a constructive ID on whether or not it was an worker or somebody who gained entry to the intensive care unit and entry into her room we’re alleging within the various a doctor or an individual showing to be a doctor whether or not that be one other degree of worker or any individual who should not have been there intruded.’

Anderson mentioned after the years-long hardship, ache and struggling endured from the case this was one more blow to the household who’ve already endured a lot.

‘Ms Kowalski was there below false imprisonment by Johns Hopkins All Kids’s Hospital as decided yesterday by a jury,’ he defined.

‘Throughout that first time frame of her imprisonment there in October a person entered the room gave the impression to be a doctor with no chaperone or any feminine or anybody else within the room knocked as soon as got here by way of the door and approached her after which pulled down her pajamas and underwear.’ 

‘[He] got here in and pulled down her pajamas and underwear to stare at [and] contact her non-public components.’

‘Maya suppressed this till about 4 weeks in the past, [but] she did put in some notes to each the psychiatrist there on the time Dr. Katzenstein and later to Dr. Henschke, the 2 feminine psychiatrists that she noticed alongside the best way.’

Anderson has revealed a slew of proof and testimony to again the declare alleging that Maya had revealed the assault to ‘a boy again when she was 13.’

After eight weeks of testimony from specialists, the Kowalski household and hospital employees jurors deliberated earlier than deciding to award the household $211,451,174 in compensatory damages.

Additionally they awarded a further $50 million in punitive damages for false imprisonment and false imprisonment with battery totaling the quantity to greater than $261 million.

In a put up to her story on Instagram, Maya uploaded an image of herself smiling in courtroom on Thursday after bursting into tears following the blockbuster trial.

‘We’re feeling so blessed! I’ll eternally be grateful,’ she wrote on-line.

Maya, 17, was simply 10, when she was eliminated by the state after docs accused her dad and mom of faking signs for her uncommon situation – complicated regional ache syndrome.

The jury discovered the emotional misery brought about to her mom Beata Kowalski – who was forbidden from seeing her daughter for 3 months – led to her suicide in 2017.

Maya, her father Jack and brother Kyle broke down in tears because the jury’s findings had been learn out on the courtroom in St. Petersburg on Thursday.

Jurors discovered the kids’s hospital answerable for false imprisonment of Maya, battery of Maya, fraudulent billing of her father Jack, inflicting emotional misery on Beata, wrongful loss of life declare for the property of Beata and deliberately inflicting emotional misery on Maya.

The household argued that the grief-stricken mother fell right into a melancholy and finally hanged herself within the household storage, however Johns Hopkins had vehemently denied that it brought about her loss of life or abused Maya. 

In a press release after the ruling was handed down, Howard Hunter, lawyer from Hill Ward Henderson who represented Johns Hopkins within the case, instructed DailyMail.com that the hospital intends to attraction the choice. 

Jury awards are usually not ultimate till the top of the appeals course of which the hospital is assured they are going to win. Its unclear how lengthy the appeals course of will take. 

Hunter mentioned: ‘The details and the legislation stay on our aspect, and we’ll proceed to defend the lifesaving and compassionate care supplied to Maya Kowalski by the physicians, nurses and employees of Johns Hopkins All Kids’s Hospital and the duty of all necessary reporters in Florida to talk up if they believe little one abuse.’

Jennifer Anderson, who represents a part of the authorized counsel for the Kowalski household mentioned: ‘We’re clearly grateful for the effort and time of the jury and Courtroom.’

‘The household is totally grateful to be vindicated and really prays this makes a change for different households sooner or later.’

What had been Maya Kowalski and her household suing Johns Hopkins All Kids’s Hospital for? 

Maya Kowalski and her household launched a $220 million lawsuit in October 2018 suing the Florida medical facility, Maya’s social employee Cathi Bedy and Dr Sally Smith alongside together with her employer, Suncoast Middle.

In December 2021, the household settled with Smith and Suncoast for the sum of $2.5 million and the Kowalski household dropped its case towards Bedy shortly earlier than the trial started. It stays unclear whether or not a settlement was brokered.

In 2016, a decide ordered Maya to be sheltered on the medical facility below state custody whereas allegations of kid abuse raised towards her dad and mom had been being investigated.

On the time, hospital employees believed Beata had been affected by Munchausen-by-proxy, or medical little one abuse. 

Munchausen-by-proxy is a psychological sickness and a type of little one abuse during which the caretaker of a kid, most frequently a mom, both makes up pretend signs or causes actual signs to make it appear like the kid is sick.

For eight weeks 12 jurors heard from the Kowalski household, hospital employees and specialists within the trial. Six jurors deliberated the case discovering in favor of Kowalski. 

The Kowalski household claimed the hospital medically kidnapped Maya and pointed to examples of battery together with ‘stripping her down’ to a sports activities bra and shorts to take photos of lesions, in addition to being ‘cuddled, kissed and held’ with out the permission of her dad and mom whereas of their care.

The hospital was accused of false imprisonment, battery, medical negligence, fraudulent billing, survivor declare for intentional infliction of emotional misery (Property of Beata Kowalski), wrongful loss of life declare for intentional infliction of emotional misery inflicting loss of life and Maya’s declare for infliction of emotional misery.

After jury directions had been learn, one juror was dismissed for medical causes after a protection request to have the juror reassigned as an alternate was dismissed.

Why was Maya Kowalski in Johns Hopkins All Kids’s Hospital?

Maya was taken to JHACH in October 2016, when she skilled a flare up of her CRPS, a illness which was recognized by a physician that was not affiliated with the Florida institute. 

Maya took the stand telling jurors that her situation left her in excruciating ache usually screaming and unable to stroll at instances.

She mentioned she acquired ketamine to deal with the ache and even underwent a ketamine coma in Mexico after the analysis and previous to her arrival at JHACH. 

On the time, she claimed the ketamine therapy labored and that she had seen a dramatic enchancment till the 2016 flare up of the uncommon situation.

Maya was recognized with complicated regional ache syndrome when she was nine-years-old and prescribed ketamine to assist uninteresting her ache.

A number of witnesses, together with well being care professionals at JHACH, maintained through the trial that Beata was exhibiting indicators of Munchausen by proxy and that Maya’s perceived CRPS signs had been being pushed by her mom.

Munchausen by proxy is a psychological dysfunction during which an abusive mum or dad or caretaker makes up or causes an sickness for an individual below their care, usually the mum or dad’s personal little one, who just isn’t really sick.

Via the trial the protection accused Beata of giving her daughter unsafe dosages of ketamine and shared emails that Beata wrote to herself from Maya’s perspective in 2015 in an effort to show their argument.

‘I’ve a really excessive tolerance for medicine, if I used to be a horse I’d be comatosed (sic) or lifeless already,’ Beata wrote in a single electronic mail from Maya’s perspective that was introduced earlier than the courtroom.

‘However issues are completely completely different in terms of a lady with RSD, my metabolism is tremendous quick. 

‘My mommy says I’m not an affordable date and my daddy’s response was that he feels deeply sorry for the “fortunate man” that can marry me sooner or later :).’

Beata crafted the emails in November 2015, when she and her husband, Jack Kowalski, traveled to Mexico with Maya to deal with her ache with a ketamine-induced coma.

Each dad and mom claimed that the therapy labored, till Maya skilled a flare-up in 2016, at which level they admitted her to JHACH.

In one other electronic mail detailing Maya’s debilitating ache waking from a coma, Beata wrote: ‘I actually needed to die once more, I felt terrible. I actually did not suppose I used to be going to make it by way of at the present time.’

Beata documented Maya’s ketamine comas in her emails which the protection argued discredits the plaintiffs’ arguments that the therapies had been secure and efficient.

Maya’s father, Jack, addressed Beata’s emails in courtroom final week saying he believes they had been an try by Beata to journal Maya’s expertise.

‘After seeing the emails, I spotted that is most likely why she was doing it,’ he mentioned.

‘I am from a household of eight youngsters my mother made a child e-book for all of us, and within the child books, it begins out, ‘I bought my first haircut’ or ‘I crawled on such-and-such date.’ When Beata and I bought married, she had seen my child e-book and he or she thought that was an superior thought.’

In his testimony Jack defined that Beata had created child books with comparable first-person narratives for Maya and their son Kyle.

It is his perception the that the emails had been an analogous try at documenting recollections within the first individual for Maya to look again on as she journeyed to raised well being.

‘She’s speaking for the kid and that is how my mother did it as effectively,’ Jack defined.

Why did hospital employees increase issues of kid abuse? 

The hospital’s protection argued the trial represents the duty hospital employees should report suspected little one abuse to authorities.

Maya was faraway from her dad and mom’ care after hospital employees grew to become suspicious of the dosage of ketamine her mom insisted on treating her with for the excruciating continual ache.

Florida’s Division of Kids and Households and a state decide supported hospital employees’s suspicions of ‘little one medical abuse’ and positioned Maya below Florida’s Division of Kids and Households’ custody and he or she was housed on the heart.

The hospital’s protection centered on employees as necessary reporters who’re required by state legislation to name the abuse hotline if they’ve ‘affordable trigger.’

Ethen Shapiro, lawyer for the hospital, beforehand said that the choice to take away Maya was made by the kid welfare system relatively than the medical facility.

The hospital launched a press release to DailyMail.com which learn: ‘Our precedence at Johns Hopkins All Kids’s Hospital is all the time the protection and privateness of our sufferers and their households.

‘Subsequently, we comply with strict federal privateness legal guidelines that restrict the quantity of knowledge we are able to launch concerning any explicit case.

‘Our first duty is all the time to the kid dropped at us for care. Our employees are required by legislation to inform Florida’s Division of Kids and Households (DCF) if they believe abuse or neglect.

‘It’s DCF and a decide – not Johns Hopkins All Kids’s Hospital – that investigates the state of affairs and makes the last word resolution about what plan of action is in one of the best curiosity of the kid.

‘We’re decided to stop any chilling impact on the duty to report suspected little one abuse with the intention to shield essentially the most weak amongst us.’

What had been the closing statements from the near two-month trial? 

The Kowalski household alleged that the facility of the big hospital system mixed with the facility of the state made them helpless.

They additional declare that being separated brought about extreme emotional misery for each Maya and her mom, who hanged herself of their storage in January 2017 after going months with out seeing her daughter.

The lawsuit additionally particulars the Kowalskis’ declare that the hospital billed their insurance coverage firm hundreds of {dollars} for CRPS therapies regardless of the employees’s claims that Maya didn’t have endure from it.

In closing statements on Tuesday Greg Anderson, who represents the household, made a fiery finish rebuttal blasting the hospital as ‘dysfunctional.’

‘That is Johns Hopkins All Kids’s Hospital, that is who they are surely,’ Anderson mentioned to the courtroom.

‘It is a spot that retaliates towards its personal workers for bringing issues out which are unfavourable and retaliates towards anybody, any mum or dad, who decides they wish to do one thing completely different.

‘This case is about a corporation that’s so screwed up that it really thinks it is a good suggestion to drive dad and mom to just accept their means of doing issues and if the dad and mom do not they’ve to seek out alternative ways to punish them.

Anderson claimed that there must be a ‘captain of the ship, and there by no means was.’

‘It was completely dysfunctional the best way this hospital operated,’ he mentioned.

‘Nobody was checking, nobody was ensuring to see how this little one was being taken care of, nobody was seeking to see how their very own workers had been behaving and it wasn’t only one.’

Ethen Shapiro, an lawyer for the hospital, tore to shreds the seven allegations towards the medical facility, pleading to the jury to take heed to details and to not hand down a verdict based mostly on sympathy.

‘Probably the most unlucky components of this case is the caption, Kowalskis versus All Kids’s. We had been by no means towards the Kowalski household,’ Shapiro mentioned.

‘The rationale why All Kids’s did what it did, the explanation why All Kids’s tried to consolation Maya, the explanation why All Kids’s tried to get her on a secure medical path is as a result of the loving and caring suppliers and my consumer’s hospital believed in a greater future for her.

‘If they may get her off the pointless medicine given at harmful ranges. Interval. Finish of story.

Shapiro pressured to jurors that if there was any trigger for punitive damages to be paid to the Kowalski household to take action, however vehemently denied the allegations towards his consumer.

‘There’s nothing outrageous that the hospital ever did, there isn’t any motive to be contemplating punitive damages, your work can finish along with your deliberations.

‘What we’d like on this courtroom is closure for everyone.’

Based on the grievance from Pinellas County Beata died by suicide due to the turmoil that the hospital created.

‘Defendants imprisoned Maya at [Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg] with no authorized justification,’ the lawsuit states.

All through the trial the hospital vehemently denied the allegations and reiterated this protection in closing statements.

‘The proof that we have been in a position to placed on by way of our protection case has proven that Maya got here to us in a horrible situation on quite a lot of harmful and pointless medicine,’ Shapiro, lawyer for the hospital mentioned through the trial.

‘We had been in a position to wean her off these medicine and get her to a spot the place she will be such as you see her right now, strolling out and in of courtroom, going to homecoming and residing a extra regular teenage life.’

Anderson rebuffed the protection’s narrative that Maya is doing significantly better after they confirmed photos of her in courtroom having fun with comparable luxuries as a ‘regular teen’ together with going out on Halloween and her homecoming dance.

‘There is a base degree of ache, however once you’re in that a lot ache at completely different instances it turns into, it isn’t as noticeable as a standard individual, actually,’ Anderson mentioned. 

‘You develop a excessive tolerance for it. CRPS sufferers all the time have a little bit little bit of ache, nevertheless it does come and go, and this is likely one of the elusive and admittedly irritating issues concerning the illness.’

Anderson argued that out of the 5 depositions made by Maya the protection had been selecting snippets to painting Maya’s life after hospitalization as ‘regular.’

He identified that Maya ‘nearly died after one relapse’ and he or she was despatched to Arnold Palmer’s Kids’s Hospital in Orlando the place she was given a feeding tube due to the numerous weight reduction she skilled.

‘The truth that they stood up for his or her rights to deal with their very own little one with one of the best data they may, with each bit of knowledge they may, and so they made the appropriate decisions,’ Anderson mentioned. 

‘So, the issues that occurred to them at Johns Hopkins are past perception, completely past perception, however we have proved them time and again.’