Sunday 23 September 2018

Really REALLY over?

I am not a lawyer, nor do I claim any specific expertise in any field having to do with law. But I do know what the word "dismissed" means, and I do know what the phrase "with prejudice" means, so when I saw these words in a Request for Dismissal, written by Bruce Brusavich (who happens to be the lawyer representing Jahi McMath's mother Nailah Winkfield), and submitted to Alameda County Superior Court on September 7, 2018, my eyes got a bit wide.

In case you aren't quite following, it appears that the Jahi McMath saga may finally finally FINALLY be over. Professor Thaddeus Pope posted this document to his website:
Again, I claim no expertise in law, but this certainly appears to me to be a request by Nailah Winkfield to dismiss all complaints against Dr. Rosen with prejudice. This means case closed, never to be reopened, etc.

If that is in fact true, I have no doubt that the two sides reached a settlement, which I (and everyone else) have predicted from the very beginning. I am also not surprised that there has been no media coverage of this whatsoever. I am also not the least bit surprised that no autopsy results have been produced, as I highly suspect Ms. Winkfield would never have let an autopsy happen. As the world learned with Terry Shiavo, autopsy results can refute family members' claims better and more soundly than any expert.

If any lawyers happen to come around, I would appreciate some verification on this. But to my untrained and extremely amateur eyes, it appears the Jahi ordeal is finally, actually, really, and in all other ways over.

Until the next one happens.

47 comments:

  1. Hopefully they have closure. This was a fiasco from the start.

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  2. This is indeed a petition for dismissal "with prejudice" which means the action against Dr. Rosen is gone and cannot be revived.

    But wasn't the family also suing Children's Hospital (and maybe other people as well)? Dismissing the case against Dr. Rosen would not have any effect on these other suits.

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    1. I’m assuming that what the “et al” refers to.

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  3. The “et al” means the other parties (CHO, other doctors) have also been dismissed. Doc, the family still has a suit against the State of California pending in the federal court system....so it isn’t really over.

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    1. Would that case require an even higher mountain of evidence for them to win it?

      Wednesday

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    2. This is a totally different claim in the fed court...nothing to do with medical malpractice and negligence.

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    3. The fed court case has to do with the family's claim that Jahi's civil rights were violated.

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    4. The girl is dead and buried, but not the case it seems. (Figuratively since i dont doubt they still keep her corpse in their living room. Maybe theyll get it stuffed?)

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  4. I'm hoping the settlement included CHO showing them video logs from PICU and asking if they really wanted them to hit the media.

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    Replies
    1. I also hope Jersey clawed most of the settlement back to cover what the family grifted off them.

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  5. "Et al" means "and others"..
    I bet they settled and my bets are they didn't get as much without the autopsy..
    If I was a lawyer I would have had a private autopsy and had a top forensic pathologist take a peek and looked at it from both perspectives, seen my odds of winning or losing, settled for more than a loss and less than a win in a settlement if the autopsy wasn't in my favor.
    But I thought there was a court order for an autopsy?
    I want to see what was in the discovery.. I wanna know why the quick settlement?
    Sighh, I wanna hear the actual story and the only way we would have would have been through court proceedings.

    I wonder if they settled because of all the sympathetic asses that hear the little girl who was kinda dead and think someone needs to pay for almost deading the kid, and close their simple minds to facts and evidence..

    I liked the law side of my criminal justice degree. I use to get paid to attend mock trials and sit on mock juries.. The ones who used emotions to vote guilty or not guilty out-numbered the rest of us who looked at the facts and evidence..
    Emotion is the enemy of Justice.

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  6. There may have been a settlement. If so, I believe it would have been for a minimal amount - probably the $250K (or less) that they would have received if the case had gone to trial. The burden of proof has always belonged to the plaintiffs and taking this case to trial would have been costly on both sides. It came down to a battle of the experts in the end and experts require high fees. Having been a paralegal with the responsibility to retain medical experts, I can attest to this. I also believe that the plaintiffs could not meet the burden of proof, as they refused to allow an independent medical exam or a new MRI. All they had were bogus videos and the opinions of physicians outside of the mainstream medical community regarding brain death. Both plaintiffs and defendants may have decided to end it with a small settlement. I expect the case against the state of CA will be dismissed.

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  7. Yeah, what really irks me is that these things start off with a media circus and end being swept underneath the rug. But the damage has been done, the "awareness" has been "lifted". The precedent has been set, and way too many people will remember that "She wasn't really dead!". She'll evolve into one of those "I remember this case, it was a friend of a friend, and she totally was still alive even though the doctors said she wasn't, so hang in there! Fight the institution!" cases.

    This sort of shit shifts public perception, and then doesn't bother to shift if back to, you know, actual reality. This is the media contributing to hearsay, rumours and fear-mongering. And because of that idiot "president" Trump, "fake news" and "disinformation" have become such buzzwords that people don't really notice anymore... but HERE we have the real "fake news", or "disinformation": the news where the media goes for the throat as long as it sells papers, and stops short of actually INFORMING people of what ACTUALLY happened once the dust was settled.

    Sure, the actual information is available on the net for anyone who wants to look. But the facts about the MISinformed actions have already been crammed down the throat of EVERYONE, and most of THOSE people won't bother to look up the facts.

    This is really disturbing. This is what warps minds and encourages mob mentality, composed of half-truths and may-bes. Heck, it was a mob mentality that put that American "president" in power in the first place.

    I may have digressed somewhat. I got slightly incensed.

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    1. If I'm wrong and the facts have been established with as much intensity as they were presented at the beginning, I will very, VERY gladly accept the correction. Sometimes it feels REALLY good to be wrong.

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    2. I do agree with your irritation at the media being quick to publish sensational hearsay and then hiding the correction somewhere between the classified ds for companionship.
      I've said before that if I ruled by fiat, I would write an order that any media outlet that publishes wrong information MUST publish the correction in such a way that it can document a strong likelihood that it gets as many views as the original error.

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    3. This is the inherent problem with the AntiVax movement. Bad study published, "experts" and celebrities get involved, all preaching falsehoods. The General Public takes the fearmongering at face value. Then, later, when the facts come out, it's a 20-line notation on page 84. No rallies are held to say "hey, we're wrong!" No blips on the evening news (even though the initial chaos was nightly/front page). Nothing there to mitigate (or even reverse) the damage done by ACTUAL fake news. I am SO with Ken on this.

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    4. I haven't seen this latest news in any of the Bay Area media. SIGH.

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    5. No matter what people will always remember an accusation over the accuser being wrong.
      If someone is in the news for a murder or a rape or something people will remember that but they will probably not remember if they were proven innocent. "Oh but he totally did it i heard it on the news"

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    6. Maybe they will, because unfortunately human nature is like that. But maybe they won't, not if the correction is given the same sort of coverage the accusation was.

      Having cooled down a bit, I suppose ultimately it's to do with people. The media is supposed to spread the information, and has the luxury of choosing what to report. Failing to report a correction is, technically, nothing they're doing wrong. Socially it has a huge impact, but they have the privilege of picking and choosing.

      As I said, ultimately it has to do with people. Ultimately people should fact check before condemning. Ultimately, in this day and age, people should seek the facts themselves instead of relying on what is hand-fed to them.

      Also, world peace and an end to starvation would be nice. Sigh.

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    7. and as I said, failing to report a correction IS something they SHOULD technically be doing wrong.
      if they publish incorrect information, they should be required to publish a correction, and it should be required to be published as prominently as the incorrect information. you can't force integrity, but you an enforce factchecking.

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  8. Does this mean you won't blog about it anymore? Because I am really sick of reading about it.

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    Replies
    1. And who has been forcing you to read anything here, John?

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    2. I write about what interests me. I also read stuff that interests me.

      You should probably think about doing the same.

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    3. Like John thinks...

      Wednesday

      Delete
  9. There are other brain-death cases that nails and co. are getting involved in.
    Granny Suction thinks she is a doctor now, and is telling one distraught mother that her child needs extra thyroid medicine, and more oxygen.
    SMGDH...

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  10. That's OK. We're concentrating all our energy on the Peyton Summon case now. This one is a win-win situation with Michael Kors.

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  11. A Request for Dismissal means it's over. Everybody's happy. A settlement with prejudice; meaning they can no longer sue. 250k + NIED (?) minus 40% on the 1st 50K recovered, plus 33% on the 2nd 50K, and another 25% if they recover more than 500K.

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  12. Peyton Summons in Texas has a 14 day stay to see if she recovers from brain death. Here we go again.

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    Replies
    1. and here is the story for those who aren't clairvoyant:
      https://www.liveaction.org/news/hospital-disconnect-life-support-child/

      pardon it being in a pro forced birth magazine.

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  13. It has already happened again. See "Payton Summons".

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  14. That's the one, the mother and mama nails have connected and nails is "advising" Paytons' mom.

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    Replies
    1. I noticed a distinct similarity between the pictures of Jahi and the pictures of Payton.

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  15. The judge in the Payton Summons case has declined the request from the parents to keep their daughter on somatic somatic. THe original TRO will expire on Monday. The family tried to find another facility to take their daughter, with no success. Honestly, what facility would take a brain dead child? They would be stuck with taking care of a dead person, plus the accompanying legal costs. Why would you voluntarily accept that?

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    Replies
    1. Only NJ Hopefully they won't take here there

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    2. NJ facilities seem to have wised up a bit. By my count, St. Peters in New Brunswick has turned down at least five requests to take a dead patient since they made the mistake of admitting Jahi.

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  16. I loathe parasites, and in "my" perfect world, Nailah Winkfield and her family of grifters would receive nothing.
    This family of opportunists used a corpse and the media to hit the "Death Lottery," causing undue stress and pain to untold numbers of committed professionals.

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    1. The only consolation in the Jahi McMath case is since nails and company won the ghetto lottery, that money will be spent on weaves, manicures, surf-n-turf, Michael Kors shoes and handbags, and other assorted gaudy bling.
      The money will be gone in two years or less, and nails will be back to working part-time at Home Depot.

      Delete
    2. "Oh, don't you worry, everything will be over soon." -- (demonic old lady from the movie The Legion).

      Delete
  17. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Family-of-Girl-9-on-Life-Support-Again-Asks-for-Extension-of-TRO-497601511.html?_osource=SocialFlowFB_DFWBrand

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  18. I followed the case of Jahi McMath and I've read all your posts on the subject but never commented on any of them before. Now I'm following the case of Payton Summons and hoping it doesn't turn into a repeat of Jahi's, unlikely given the tumour on her heart yet possible because of the involvement of pro-life groups, notably the Terri Schiavo Network and the fact Jahi's mother is in contact with Payton's family.

    I suppose I'm morbidly fascinated in these cases because it astounds me to see how much torment parents are legally able to inflict on their children and justify it by their very misguided/misinterpreted belief in God. I have nothing against anyone believing in God, by the way, but I have a huge problem with them inflicting suffering on others in his name. I'm also amazed by the confusion which still exists between coma, vegetative state and brain death among the general public. Reading comments about Jahi/Payton on social media, I always come across people who say things like "my brother was declared brain dead but we refused to give up and he woke up six months later and walked out of hospital". It also infuriates me when people say doctors and judges are trying to "play God" by withdrawing treatment from people who can't recover. If there is a God, surely he already decided and therefore trying to intervene in his will by preventing these people's natural passing is actually playing God?

    Anyway, I hope you don't stop writing about these cases and reporting the truth. If nothing else, it's an important ethical debate which we as a society need to have, myths need to be dispelled and people need to be informed and educated.

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  19. Really? Doc is going to hunt you down.

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  20. and how many viruses does that deliver?

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  21. Does anyone have access to this article online?

    Neurocritical Care

    December 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3, pp 521–522 | Cite as
    Response to Lewis A: Reconciling the Case of Jahi Mcmath

    Authors Calixto MachadoEmail Mario EstévezPhillip A. DeFinaGerry Leisman

    Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery Havana Cuba
    2.International Brain Research Foundation Flanders USA
    3.The National Institute for Brain and Rehabilitation Sciences Nazareth Israel

    Wednesday

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