John Hopkins All Children's Hospital seeks RETRIAL in Netflix's Maya Kowalski case two weeks after she won $261M lawsuit - and claims jury foreman shared 'inside information' with his wife who posted videos on social media

John Hopkins All Children's Hospital has filed for a retrial in the case brought by Netflix's Maya Kowalski just two weeks after she was awarded $261 million in damages.

The hospital, which was found to have falsely imprisoned and battered Kowalski, have now accused the trial's jury foreman of violating strict conduct rules during proceedings.  

Attorneys for the hospital claimed in a motion filed in Sarasota County that during the trial, juror Paul Lengyel shared information about the case with his wife, who then posted it on social media.

Maya, 17, was just 10, when she was removed by the state after doctors accused her parents of faking symptoms for her rare condition - complex regional pain syndrome.

The jury found the emotional distress caused to her mother Beata Kowalski - who was forbidden from seeing her daughter for three months - led to her suicide in 2017.

Lawyers representing the hospital in the case brought by the Kowalski family argue that jury foreman Paul Lengyel's wife, Yolanda, attended at least one day of the trial in Venice, meaning she could have heard attorney discussions with the judge that were made outside of the jury's presence. 

Court documents state that Yolanda Lengyel posted on live YouTube feeds of the trial and in a Facebook chat group largely supportive of the Kowalski family.

She is also accused of meeting with a social media influencer known as Jules, who, the motion states, is connected to the Kowalski family. 

It cites as evidence a video Jules posted on her TikTok page stating that she gave Maya Kowalski her rosary beads before Maya's live testimony on October 9.

Yolanda Lengyel also allegedly discussed on social media questions her husband intended to ask of witnesses and about a juror note sent while the jury was deliberating, the motion states.

'The evidence reveals a shocking level of involvement in the case and palpable bias in favor of plaintiffs on the part of Juror #1′s wife, Mrs. Lengyel, as well as social media posts sharing 'inside' information Mrs. Lengyel could only have obtained from her husband,' the motion reads.

At the conclusion of the trial Maya, her father Jack and brother Kyle broke down in tears as the jury's findings were read out at the court in St. Petersburg.

Jurors found the children's hospital liable for false imprisonment of Maya, battery of Maya, fraudulent billing of her father Jack; inflicting emotional distress on Beata; wrongful death claim for the estate of Beata; and intentionally inflicting emotional distress on Maya. 

The extent of the damages owed to the family were still being resolved in court at the time of writing but jurors have awarded the Kowalski's at least $211million.

The family argued that the grief-stricken mom fell into a depression and ultimately hanged herself in the family garage, but Johns Hopkins had vehemently denied that it caused her death or abused Maya. 

In a statement after the ruling was handed down, Howard Hunter, attorney from Hill Ward Henderson who represented Johns Hopkins in the case, told DailyMail.com that the hospital intends to appeal the decision. 

Hunter said: 'The facts and the law remain on our side, and we will continue to defend the lifesaving and compassionate care provided to Maya Kowalski by the physicians, nurses and staff of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital and the responsibility of all mandatory reporters in Florida to speak up if they suspect child abuse.'

Jennifer Anderson, who represents part of the legal counsel for the Kowalski family said: 'We are obviously grateful for the time and effort of the jury and Court and the family is completely grateful to be vindicated and truly prays this makes a change for other families in the future.'

Why was Maya Kowalski in Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital?

Maya was taken to JHACH in October 2016, when she experienced a flare up of her CRPS, a disease which was diagnosed by a doctor that was not affiliated with the Florida institute. 

Maya took the stand telling jurors that her condition left her in excruciating pain often screaming and unable to walk at times.

She said she received ketamine to treat the pain and even underwent a ketamine coma in Mexico after the diagnosis and prior to her arrival at JHACH. 

At the time, she claimed the ketamine treatment worked and that she had seen a dramatic improvement until the 2016 flare up of the rare condition.

Maya was diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome when she was nine-years-old and prescribed ketamine to help dull her pain.

Multiple witnesses, including health care professionals at JHACH, maintained during the trial that Beata was exhibiting signs of Munchausen by proxy and that Maya's perceived CRPS symptoms were being driven by her mother.

Munchausen by proxy is a psychological disorder in which an abusive parent or caretaker makes up or causes an illness for a person under their care, often the parent's own child, who is not actually ill.

Through the trial the defense accused Beata of giving her daughter unsafe dosages of ketamine and shared emails that Beata wrote to herself from Maya's perspective in 2015 in an effort to prove their argument.

'I have a very high tolerance for drugs, if I was a horse I would be comatosed (sic) or dead already,' Beata wrote in one email from Maya's perspective that was presented before the court.

'But things are totally different when it comes to a girl with RSD, my metabolism is super fast. 

'My mommy says I am not a cheap date and my daddy's response was that he feels deeply sorry for the "lucky man" that will marry me one day :).'

Beata crafted the emails in November 2015, when she and her husband, Jack Kowalski, traveled to Mexico with Maya to treat her pain with a ketamine-induced coma.

Both parents claimed that the treatment worked, until Maya experienced a flare-up in 2016, at which point they admitted her to JHACH.

In another email detailing Maya's debilitating pain waking from a coma, Beata wrote: 'I literally wanted to die again, I felt awful. I really didn't think I was going to make it through this day.'

Beata documented Maya's ketamine comas in her emails which the defense argued discredits the plaintiffs' arguments that the treatments were safe and effective.

Maya's father, Jack, addressed Beata's emails in court last week saying he believes they were an attempt by Beata to journal Maya's experience.

'After seeing the emails, I realized this is probably why she was doing it,' he said.

'I'm from a family of eight children my mom made a baby book for all of us, and in the baby books, it starts out, 'I got my first haircut' or 'I crawled on such-and-such date.' When Beata and I got married, she had seen my baby book and she thought that was an awesome idea.'

In his testimony Jack explained that Beata had created baby books with similar first-person narratives for Maya and their son Kyle.

It's his belief the that the emails were a similar attempt at documenting memories in the first person for Maya to look back on as she journeyed to better health.

'She's talking for the child and that's how my mom did it as well,' Jack explained.

Why did hospital staff raise concerns of child abuse? 

The hospital's defense argued the trial represents the responsibility hospital staff have to report suspected child abuse to authorities.

Maya was removed from her parents' care after hospital staff became suspicious of the dosage of ketamine her mother insisted on treating her with for the excruciating chronic pain.

Florida's Department of Children and Families and a state judge supported hospital staff's suspicions of 'child medical abuse' and placed Maya under Florida's Department of Children and Families' custody and she was housed at the center.

The hospital's defense centered on staff as mandatory reporters who are required by state law to call the abuse hotline if they have 'reasonable cause.'

Ethen Shapiro, attorney for the hospital, previously stated that the decision to remove Maya was made by the child welfare system rather than the medical facility.

The hospital released a statement to DailyMail.com which read: 'Our priority at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital is always the safety and privacy of our patients and their families.

'Therefore, we follow strict federal privacy laws that limit the amount of information we can release regarding any particular case.

'Our first responsibility is always to the child brought to us for care. Our staff are required by law to notify Florida's Department of Children and Families (DCF) if they suspect abuse or neglect.

'It is DCF and a judge – not Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital – that investigates the situation and makes the ultimate decision about what course of action is in the best interest of the child.

'We are determined to prevent any chilling effect on the obligation to report suspected child abuse in order to protect the most vulnerable among us.'

What were the closing statements from the close to two-month trial? 

The Kowalski family alleged that the power of the large hospital system combined with the power of the state made them helpless.

They further claim that being separated caused severe emotional distress for both Maya and her mother, who hanged herself in their garage in January 2017 after going months without seeing her daughter.

The lawsuit also details the Kowalskis' claim that the hospital billed their insurance company thousands of dollars for CRPS treatments despite the staff's claims that Maya did not have suffer from it.

In closing statements on Tuesday Greg Anderson, who represents the family, made a fiery end rebuttal blasting the hospital as 'dysfunctional.'

'This is Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, this is who they really are,' Anderson said to the court.

'It's a place that retaliates against its own employees for bringing things out that are negative and retaliates against anyone, any parent, who decides they want to do something different.

'This case is about an organization that is so screwed up that it actually thinks it's a good idea to force parents to accept their way of doing things and if the parents don't they have to find different ways to punish them.

Anderson claimed that there needs to be a 'captain of the ship, and there never was.'

'It was totally dysfunctional the way this hospital operated,' he said.

'No one was checking, no one was making sure to see how this child was being taken care of, no one was looking to see how their own employees were behaving and it wasn't just one.'

Ethen Shapiro, an attorney for the hospital, tore to shreds the seven allegations against the medical facility, pleading to the jury to listen to facts and not to hand down a verdict based on sympathy.

'The most unfortunate parts of this case is the caption, Kowalskis versus All Children's. We were never against the Kowalski family,' Shapiro said.

'The reason why All Children's did what it did, the reason why All Children's tried to comfort Maya, the reason why All Children's tried to get her on a safe medical path is because the loving and caring providers and my client's hospital believed in a better future for her.

'If they could get her off the unnecessary drugs given at dangerous levels. Period. End of story.

Shapiro stressed to jurors that if there was any cause for punitive damages to be paid to the Kowalski family to do so, but vehemently denied the allegations against his client.

'There's nothing outrageous that the hospital ever did, there's no reason to be considering punitive damages, your work can end with your deliberations.

'What we need in this courtroom is closure for everybody.'

According to the complaint from Pinellas County Beata died by suicide because of the turmoil that the hospital created.

'Defendants imprisoned Maya at [Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg] with no legal justification,' the lawsuit states.

Throughout the trial the hospital vehemently denied the allegations and reiterated this defense in closing statements.

'The evidence that we've been able to put on through our defense case has shown that Maya came to us in a horrible condition on a number of dangerous and unnecessary drugs,' Shapiro, attorney for the hospital said during the trial.

'We were able to wean her off those drugs and get her to a place where she can be like you see her today, walking in and out of court, going to homecoming and living a more normal teenage life.'

Anderson rebuffed the defense's narrative that Maya is doing much better after they showed pictures of her in court enjoying similar luxuries as a 'normal teen' including going out on Halloween and her homecoming dance.

'There's a base level of pain, but when you're in that much pain at different times it becomes, it's not as noticeable as a normal person, really,' Anderson said. 

'You develop a high tolerance for it. CRPS patients always have a little bit of pain, but it does come and go, and this is one of the elusive and frankly frustrating things about the disease.'

Anderson argued that out of the five depositions made by Maya the defense had been picking snippets to portray Maya's life after hospitalization as 'normal.'

He pointed out that Maya 'almost died after one relapse' and she was sent to Arnold Palmer's Children's Hospital in Orlando where she was given a feeding tube because of the significant weight loss she experienced.

'The fact that they stood up for their rights to treat their own child with the best knowledge they could, with every bit of information they could, and they made the right choices,' Anderson said. 

'So, the things that happened to them at Johns Hopkins are beyond belief, absolutely beyond belief, but we've proved them over and over again.'