Johns Hopkins to Pay Millions in ‘Medical Kidnapping’ Case at Center of ‘Take Care of Maya’ Netflix Doc

A Florida jury has sided with the family of Maya Kowalski, whose care at Johns Hopkins Children's Hospital was the center point of Netflix documentary 'Take Care of Maya' following her mother’s death by suicide.

A jury sided with the Kowalski family on all seven claims including false imprisonment, battery, medical negligence, fraudulent billing, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and wrongful death, Fox13 Tampa Bay reports.

The decision came Thursday after lawyers for Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, and the family of 17-year-old Kowalski, presented their closing arguments in the multimillion dollar case on Tuesday.

The Kowalski's lawsuit, filed in the wake of Beata Kowalski's death by suicide, totaled $220 million. An ultimate award has yet to be determined.

Maya was placed under state custody when she was 10-years-old days after she was admitted to the facility for a painful stomachache in 2016, per the Tampa Bay Times.

According to the New York Post, doctors at the hospital believed that Maya had been faking her illness due to Münchausen syndrome by proxy, which is when a parent or caregiver pretends a child is sick to receive sympathy from others.

The claim led to doctors alerting child welfare services. Beata, who a hospital social worker believed had coaxed Maya into faking her pain, was then banned from seeing her.

While the family was investigated for allegations of child abuse, Beata was ordered not to have physical contact with her daughter during the investigation. After not being able to see her daughter for 87 days, she took her own life.

Her suicide note read “I’m sorry, but I no longer can take the pain being away from Maya and being treated like a criminal. I cannot watch my daughter suffer in pain and keep getting worse while my hands are tied by the state of FL and the judge!" according to New York Magazine.

The events were chronicled in the 2023 Netflix documentary, Take Care of Maya.

”She said, ‘I love you and I’ll see you tomorrow,’ and I never saw her again,” Maya, now a teenager, said during a court appearance last month of the last time she saw her mother, per the Tampa Bay Times.

Maya also spoke about how lonely she felt while being involuntarily kept at the hospital as a child, and how she claimed a social worker there appeared unconcerned when she asked about seeing her mother.

She also described being put through physical therapy that aggravated a neurological condition, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, which causes pain in her arms and legs when touched — an illness she claims doctors did not believe she had.

Maya also said at one point, she was filmed without her consent.

”I was medically kidnapped,” she told People Magazine earlier this year.

Maya was eventually placed back with her family just days after Beata’s death by suicide, per NBC News.

The hospital’s legal team argued that doctors were faced with a unique situation, as Maya appeared to be in tremendous pain and Beata had asked doctors to give her daughter concerning amounts of pain medication, the news station reported.

“Mrs. Kowalski insisted that before there be any work up of the child she wanted ketamine, and not just any amount of ketamine," attorney Howard Hunter said in court. "It is not approved for use in children, nor is it approved for use in high doses for treatment in CRPS."

After arriving at the hospital, Hunter said Beata told doctors not to touch Maya, though they wanted to rule out what could be causing her pain, according NBC News.

The family’s attorney, Greg Anderson, told jurors that Maya was “repeatedly battered by nurses and social workers trying to prove that she did not have” her neurological condition.

Ahead of the jury’s decision, the family’s legal team called an expert witness to testify about a Joint Commission review that possibly showed “cultural and systemic failures” at the hospital, the Herald-Tribune reported. The hospital’s defense argued that the facility had met accreditation standards in 2016.

Along with false imprisonment and malpractice, the family sued for battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and fraudulent billing, among other things, the Herald-Tribune said.