VENICE, Fla. — There is just one more week left of defense testimonies in the trial at the center of the "Take Care of Maya" documentary. It's the case involving a Venice family's $220 million lawsuit against Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital.
Jurors have been presented with a lot of information and evidence, most recently including several emails, blogs and Facebook posts that Beata Kowalski wrote to herself in Maya's voice, some for the public. Jurors have also heard from a combination of more than 40 depositions and witnesses.
Judge Hunter Carroll has scheduled closing arguments to begin as soon as late next week and jury deliberations the following week.
In court Friday, the issue of billing took center stage.
Throughout this case, the credibility of Maya Kowalski's symptoms related to Complex Regional Pain Syndrome has come under the microscope. Several doctors and nurses for All Children's Hospital testified that they did not believe Maya suffered from CPRS but instead from a psychological and neurological disorder that was being compounded and amplified by her mother Beata whom they accused of doctor shopping and child abuse for over-medicating her. They suspected Beata of Munchausen Syndrome By proxy but other doctors who treated Maya have maintained otherwise.
Beata Kowalski's Facebook post on Maya's treatment
"She tried therapy before the ketamine. The only reason why she went for ketamine is because she failed therapy. She went to rehab in many hospitals before and that actually increased her pain. If you look at the notes, she did therapy and it made her pain worse," Dr Ashraf Hanna, Maya's doctor and pain specialist, said.
Lead attorney for the Kowalski family has pushed back against the narrative of medical child abuse that the defense witnesses have woven over the last two weeks.
"The hospital is trying to portray themselves as saviors of the child abuse system and that's simply not the case," Greg Anderson, attorney for the Kowalski Family, said.
Despite the lingering questions from some of the hospital's staff, court documents provided a new perspective on how the Kowalski family's insurance was billed by the hospital.
"There appears to be 12 other services rendered," Jason Bankert, the executive director for revenue cycle at JHACH, said.
"My question is whether CPRS is the focal point of this bill where $10,000 was paid?" Nick Whitney, counsel for the Kowalski family asked.
"I can tell you that CPRS is part of what we submitted," Bankert answered.
"What All Children's did was compassionate care that saved Maya Kowalski from what was, in Dr.Smith's view, medical child abuse," Ethen Shapiro, an attorney for All Children's Hospital, said.
"Unfortunately this case has caused a deep chilling effect in mandatory reporting throughout the country and All Children's is here standing up for mandatory reporters that when we suspect child abuse we report it," he added.
Anderson, the Kowalski family's attorney, disagreed with that premise and said the case is about parent's rights.
"It's about the ability of when you have got a government agency aligning with a huge medical organization to make up their minds about something just because they didn't agree with the parents," he said.
Following the final testimonies and closing arguments, barring any new developments, jurors would have at least three days on the schedule to deliberate on their verdict.
