It’s official. Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital has been found liable for the medical kidnapping of Maya Kowalski, medical malpractice, billing fraud, and driving Beata Kowalski to suicide. In a groundbreaking decision, a Florida jury found the hospital liable for every charge brought forward by the plaintiffs and awarded compensatory damages in the amount of just over $211 million. Then they awarded $50 million in punitive damages against the hospital that colluded with DCS to falsely imprison a medically complex child over false allegations that her mother had Munchausen by Proxy.
There’s never been a victory like this before in civil court. Most medical malpractice suits never make it to trial, and this one included the novel cause of action, the intentional infliction of emotional distress that caused the death of Beata Kowalski. The question posed to the jurors on that count is one that will certainly be appealed but survived this jury’s bar for liability, and it read as follows:
Did Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, through the acts of its employees, engage in extreme and outrageous conduct, intending that conduct to cause, or with reckless disregard of the high probability of causing, severe emotional distress to Beata Kowalski that was sufficient to be a legal cause of Beata Kowalski’s death by suicide?
The answer was a resounding yes. The jury found that the conduct by JHACH created in Beata an uncontrollable impulse to die by suicide, and that conduct was a substantial factor in her death. On just that one count the jury awarded around $104 million.
This is the first time this kind of claim has prevailed in a civil case. The rest of the claims included false imprisonment, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraudulent billing, and medical negligence. The jury was unanimous and they dropped the hammer on JHACH. My only regret is there wasn’t a count for the religious discrimination the family suffered.
Whether the Kowalskis will see any of the money for years to come is unknown. JHACH is sure to tie them up in appeals courts on the wrongful death claim if not others. However, their actions and the consequences of them have been fully aired in the public and no amount of appeal decisions in their favor will repair JHACH’s reputation it has earned as child abusers.