A judge’s tentative ruling could cost the family of Jahi McMath millions of dollars.
An Alameda County judge is inclined to uphold previous findings that the Oakland girl is dead, even though she's still on life support, the Mercury News reports. If that's the case, it would limit damages in any malpractice case to a few hundred thousand dollars, instead of the millions the family could get if she were considered alive.
The family’s suit, filed earlier this year, claim that Jahi’s nurses violated the standards of "competent performance" as set forth in the Nurse Practice Act.
Jahi, 13 at the time, underwent a tonsillectomy and tissue removal at Children's Hospital in Oakland to treat sleep apnea. She suffered massive bleeding, had a heart attack and was declared brain dead on Dec. 12, 2013.
The McMath family accuses Children's Hospital Oakland of ignoring their calls for a doctor and hounding them to donate their daughter's organs.
