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As Maya Kowalski's medical abuse trial continues, the teenager was spotted enjoying a night out with friends.
The Kowalski family are currently in the process of suing Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in Florida for $220 million.
Their suit comes in the wake of Maya's mother, Beata Kowalski, taking her own life.
As documented in the Netflix series Take Care of Maya, Beata took her own life in 2017 after she was prevented from seeing her daughter for three months.
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Beata, a registered nurse, requested that the then-10 year old was given a dose of ketamine to quell her complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) symptoms.
Maya had previously been treated with the drug at a different facility, but staff at John Hopkins alerted child protective services and an investigation accused Maya's mother Beata of Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSP) - resulting in Maya being taken away from her parents, Beata and Jack.
The court case, which started in September, has so far seen Maya recalling the last time she saw her late mother, but the teenager hasn't been in court of late due to being in pain with her CRPS.
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Her lawyers said that the stress of the case was worsening her symptoms.
However, lawyers for Johns Hopkins All Medical Center said in court on Tuesday (October 31) that they had obtained social media images of Maya out on the town.
Hospital attorney Ethen Shapiro said to the judge: "This is the life of Maya Kowalski today.
"We did not aggravate a pre-existing condition. She’s at her prom, she’s out in heels, has friends — it’s in complete contradiction to her testimony."
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While Maya's attorneys have argued that the photos were inadmissible, the judge in the case allowed several of them into evidence.
The story of the abuse allegations against the Kowalski family was immortalized in the 2023 Netflix documentary Taking Care of Maya and went into greater depths of how CRPS affliction is poorly understood.
“Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a broad term describing excess and prolonged pain and inflammation that can occur following an injury or other medical event such as surgery, trauma, stroke, or heart attack,” explains the National Institute of Health.
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“CRPS has acute (recent, short-term) and chronic (lasting greater than six months) forms.
“Although CRPS improves over time, eventually going away in most people, the severe or prolonged cases are profoundly disabling. Because of the varied symptoms, the fact that symptoms may change over time, and the difficulty finding a positive cause in some cases, CRPS is hard to treat.”
It's believed that CRPS affects nearly 200,000 patients annually in the United States.
Topics: News, US News, Netflix, Documentaries
Niamh Shackleton