The medical malpractice lawsuit filed by Jahi McMath’s family against Children’s Hospital Oakland ended without a public settlement. Court records show the plaintiff filed a dismissal on September 7, 2018, with a formal entry of dismissal on December 6, 2018, roughly two months before the case was set to go to trial.1Thaddeus Pope. Jahi McMath Legal Case Records No settlement amount has ever been publicly disclosed, and no verdict was ever reached. If you are searching for a Jahi McMath lawsuit settlement figure, the honest answer is that one has never been made public.
How the Malpractice Case Actually Ended
The family, represented pro bono by San Francisco attorney Christopher Dolan, filed the malpractice and wrongful death suit in February 2015 in Alameda County Superior Court against UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland and its physicians, including Dr. Frederick S. Rosen (Case No. RG15760730).2Thaddeus Pope. Rosen Motion to Intervene, ND Cal3NBC Bay Area. Jahi McMath Mother Continues Legal Fight to Reverse Daughter’s Death Ruling A jury trial had been scheduled for February 2019.4San Francisco Chronicle. Case of Jahi McMath, Girl Declared Brain Dead The trial never happened.
Dolan’s own account, published shortly after McMath’s death, described the litigation as having ended when she died and did not mention any settlement or resolution terms.5Dolan Law Firm. New Legal Issues Concerning Brain Death A confidential settlement before the September 2018 dismissal is possible; plaintiff-initiated dismissals in malpractice cases often follow private agreements. But nothing in the public record confirms one. What the record shows is a plaintiff dismissal, no trial, no reported verdict, and no disclosed figure.
Why Money Was the Central Fight
The dispute over whether McMath was legally alive or dead was, in dollar terms, a fight over the ceiling on damages. Under California’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act as it existed at the time, noneconomic damages in a wrongful death case were capped at $250,000. If a jury found McMath had been living all along, the case could have been reframed as a personal injury claim with no such cap, and the family could seek damages for years of medical expenses and pain and suffering worth potentially millions.6Stanford Law School. Death and Taxes: Is One No Longer a Certainty
Attorneys on both sides had expressed openness to settlement negotiations during the litigation.7Mercury News. Jahi McMath Death Could Have Costly Implications in Civil Case Against Hospital, Doctors That is the closest the public record comes to any indication of a deal.
The 2017 Ruling That Kept the Case Alive
On September 5, 2017, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Stephen Pulido ruled that whether McMath was legally alive was a question of fact for a jury to decide. He rejected the hospital’s argument that the 2014 death certificate barred further inquiry. Pulido relied heavily on testimony from Dr. Alan Shewmon, a retired UCLA neurologist who had reviewed dozens of videos of McMath taken between 2014 and 2016 and described her as “a living, severely disabled young lady” who no longer met standard diagnostic guidelines for brain death.8SFGate. Judge: Jahi McMath May Be Alive, Lawsuit Can Proceed
That ruling preserved the personal injury track, and with it the settlement leverage. Without it, the case was worth at most the $250,000 MICRA cap plus economic damages.9CBS News San Francisco. Attorney for Jahi McMath to Fight Brain Dead Declaration
How McMath’s Death Changed the Value
Jahi McMath died on June 22, 2018, at a hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She was 17. The preliminary cause of death was bleeding from liver failure, with the death certificate noting a four-year history of anoxic brain injury from severe blood loss following her 2013 surgery.10KQED. Jahi McMath, Teen at Center of Medical and Religious Debate on Brain Death, Has Died
Legal analysts said her death cut the case’s potential value substantially. Future medical expenses, which had been the largest component of the damages, dropped out entirely. Dolan told reporters the family was considering a second lawsuit for medical expenses incurred between the 2013 surgery and the 2018 death.7Mercury News. Jahi McMath Death Could Have Costly Implications in Civil Case Against Hospital, Doctors The plaintiff dismissal followed roughly two and a half months later.
Background on the Underlying Malpractice Claim
On December 9, 2013, McMath, then 13, underwent surgery at Children’s Hospital Oakland to remove her tonsils, adenoids, and extra sinus tissue to treat obstructive sleep apnea. She was alert afterward and asked for a popsicle. While recovering in the intensive care unit, she began bleeding heavily and went into cardiac arrest. Three days later, doctors declared her brain dead.11CNN. Jahi McMath, Teen at Center of Brain Death Battle, Has Died
Her mother, Nailah Winkfield, refused to accept the determination. On December 24, 2013, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo ruled there was “clear and convincing evidence” that McMath had suffered brain death, effectively declaring her legally dead under California law.12SFGate. Jahi McMath’s Family Takes Brain Death Lawsuit to Federal Court In January 2014, the family transferred her to a facility in New Jersey, the only state with a law allowing families to reject a brain death determination on religious grounds.13ABC7 News. Judge Says Jahi McMath, Deemed Brain Dead, May Still Be Alive Over the next four and a half years there, her body went through puberty, including the onset of menstruation, and some observers reported intermittent responsiveness to commands.14PubMed. Jahi McMath Case Report Those developments were what the family’s expert testimony in the malpractice case leaned on.
A Separate Federal Case, Not a Settlement
The malpractice suit was not the only litigation. In December 2015, the family also filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in the Northern District of California (Case No. 15-cv-06042-HSG) seeking to force the Alameda County coroner to revoke McMath’s 2013 death certificate, arguing that maintaining the certificate violated her Fourteenth Amendment due process rights.12SFGate. Jahi McMath’s Family Takes Brain Death Lawsuit to Federal Court On December 12, 2016, Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. dismissed the claims that sought to declare McMath had not been brain dead in 2013, and stayed the remainder pending state court action.15CaseMine. McMath v. California, Case No. 15-cv-06042-HSG
After McMath’s death, Dolan said he intended to continue the federal case to change her official date of death from December 2013 to June 22, 2018.11CNN. Jahi McMath, Teen at Center of Brain Death Battle, Has Died That case sought a corrected death certificate, not damages, and the available records do not show its final resolution. It is not a source of any settlement.
What the Public Record Supports
If you take away only one thing on the money question: the Jahi McMath malpractice case ended by plaintiff dismissal, not by settlement announcement or verdict, and no dollar figure has been made public. A private settlement cannot be ruled out from the outside, and consumer advocates including Consumer Watchdog had criticized the MICRA cap during the case for making it financially cheaper when children died rather than survived with catastrophic injuries.16Consumer Watchdog. Jahi McMath Case Rife With Tragedy and Politics But confirmation of an actual payment, and any amount attached to it, has never entered the public record.