Maya and Beata Kowalski.Photo:Jack Kowalski
Jack Kowalski
At the hearing, which was broadcast live onFox13 News, Maya appeared in a black blazer and was seen taking notes while a lawyer for representing the hospital shared his opening statement.
Greg Anderson, the Kowalski family’s attorney, alleged the hospital’s actions “caused [Beata], in the end, to lose completely and utterly her ability to control her maternal instinct, and the fact outweighed the survival instinct.”
As a result, Anderson said, Maya and her brother Kyle were “denied” a “loving, caring, and amazing mother,” he added, as Maya shed tears seated behind him. (The Kowalski’s ordeal was featured in a PEOPLE cover story.)
Maya Kowalski.Gesi Schilling
Gesi Schilling
In 2016, Maya was checked into the Children’s Hospital for debilitating stomach pain. Hospital staff would go on to report Beata to authorities after she requested Maya be treated with ketamine, saying the drug had been effective for Maya in the past.
(L to R) Maya Kowalski; Jack Kowalski; Beata Kowalski; and Kyle Kowalski in Take Care of Maya.Netflix
Netflix
At Thursday’s hearing, the hospital’s attorneys claimed Beata sought out care that was “aggressive.”
Less than a week after being hospitalized, Maya would be placed under state custody in the hospital. She didn’t see her family for three months.
“I was medically kidnapped,” Mayatold PEOPLEin an exclusive interview in June.
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Without any contact with her daughter, Beata “was deteriorating," Jack Kowalski, Maya’s father, told PEOPLE in June. Jack added that it “destroyed” the mother of two when a judged denied her a request to hug Maya.
“I’m sorry,” she wrote in an email discovered after her death, “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.”
The trial will determine whether the entire series of events could have been prevented and whether the hospital had a role in Beata’s suicide, Fox13 News reports.
The family is suing the hospital for $220 million: the Kowalski family demands $55 million be in compensatory damages, and $165 million be paid in punitive damages, according toWTSP.
The court is expected to start the presentation of evidence on Friday.
source: people.com
