VENICE, Fla. — After nine weeks of emotional testimony, the "Take Care of Maya" case is now in the hands of the jury.
The Venice-based Kowalski family is suing Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital over allegations of malpractice, false imprisonment, and wrongful death for causing Maya's mom, Beata, to take her own life.
Hospital staff accused Beata Kowalski of Munchausen Syndrome by proxy, medical child abuse and doctor shopping. They said she was causing her then 10-year-old daughter Maya's illness to worsen by giving her excessive doses of pain medication and sedatives like ketamine.
According to the Kowalski family, their doctors diagnosed Maya with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome but evidence in court showed several doctors and experts questioned those claims because Maya's symptoms and story did not correlate. Instead, many of them deduced there was a psychological component to Maya's illness and that her relationship with her mother was manifesting physically, requiring psychiatric care and physical therapy.
Tuesday morning, lawyers for both sides concluded closing arguments. The trial, which began nine weeks ago, took jurors through more than 50 witness testimonies and depositions and several dozen pieces of evidence. Those six jurors got their final instructions and began deliberations on Tuesday.
Lawyers tried to sway jurors with their arguments and remind them about key evidence in their case. Attorneys for the Kowalski family were the first to make the final pitch for damages.
"Doctors who were supposed to do no harm just blew up this family," Greg Anderson, an attorney for the Kowalski family, said,
Anderson highlighted how the family said doctors at the hospital treated them.
"Walking in as a normal family with a child with a debilitating disease, they walked out suddenly with Beata as the enemy and Maya as a liar," he said.
The defense team laid out why they felt the jury should not award in favor of the Kowalski family.
"All Children's did not harm this family, not just the people here but the people back at the hospital," Ethen Shapiro, an attorney for All Children's Hospital, said.
"Why are we going back on ketamine? Do not award millions of dollars for ketamine," Shapiro added.
Throughout the trial, attorneys for All Children's Hospital maintained that hospital staff protected Maya and saved her life from dangerous doses of sedatives.
"The amount they were giving her, if she was a horse, she would be comatose or dead. Acknowledging that the procedure is high risk due to all of these complications and they are at risk of total body failure and death," Shapiro said.
"There have been some wild allegations that Maya was left in her feces — they have had that video for five years. If that was true you would see it. If that was true you would have been shown evidence of it. It didn't happen," he added.
The family is hoping for $220 million in punitive damages, including compensation for pain and suffering, emotional distress, long-term psychological care, loss of earnings, medical negligence, billing fraud and battery.