St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital will not face reinstatement of the $213 million jury verdict against it after the Florida Supreme Court declined to review the case Aug. 4.
The case stems from a 2016 court-ordered decision to shelter then-10-year-old Maya Kowalski at the hospital, after staff reported her mother, Beata Kowalski, to DCF on suspicion of child abuse. Beata died by suicide during the family’s separation from Maya, and their story became the subject of the Netflix documentary “Take Care of Maya,” which drew backlash against the hospital after its June 2023 release.
The court order, reviewed by Becker’s, denied the Kowalski family’s petition without accepting jurisdiction and barred any motion for rehearing. This leaves intact the Second District Court of Appeal’s Oct. 29 decision that threw out the verdict, citing Florida’s immunity statute for mandatory reporters of suspected child abuse. Maya Kowalski in November had asked the Second District Court to reconsider before petitioning the state’s highest court in early 2026.
A jury awarded Maya Kowalski and her father, Jack Kowalski, $261 million in November 2023; a judge later reduced that award to $213 million in January 2024. Jurors found the hospital liable for false imprisonment, medical negligence and other claims tied to the 2016 incident. Attorneys had raised jury impartiality concerns before the hospital began its defense that October.
The hospital signaled plans to challenge the verdict within days of the 2023 judgment, then alleged juror misconduct in a bid for a new trial. Mediation failed in spring 2024, and the hospital appealed to the Second District Court in August 2024.
The case now returns to Sarasota County for a narrower retrial covering Maya Kowalski’s emotional distress claim and the surviving portions of the false imprisonment, battery and medical negligence claims. Punitive damages and the wrongful death and fraudulent billing claims are foreclosed under the appeals court’s ruling.
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