A grieving family will receive $2.25 million after a Georgia judge ruled a metro Atlanta-based pathologist violated their privacy by posting autopsy photos of their decapitated baby on social media. A Fulton County jury on Wednesday found Dr. Jackson Gates and his company, Gates Rapid Diagnostic Laboratory of Atlanta, owed the baby’s parents $2 million in compensatory damages and $2,500,0000 in punitive damages—the legal maximum, according to a report from affiliate FOX 5 Atlanta.
The baby’s young mother, Jessica Ross, experienced a complication known as shoulder dystocia during her delivery on July 9, leading to a rushed Cesarean section. The couple, Jessica Ross and Treveon Taylor Sr., later filed a lawsuit against Southern Regional Medical Center and the OBGYN, claiming the doctor pulled on the baby’s head and neck so hard that the bones in his skull, face and neck were broken. While doctors delivered the baby’s body and legs during the procedure, his head remained in the vaginal canal.
Attorneys claimed the nurses and medical staff at the hospital lied to the couple about what occurred during labor, discouraged them from getting an autopsy, encouraged them to cremate the baby’s body, and did not report the death to the medical examiner. As part of the parents’ search for answers, they hired Gates to perform a private autopsy. Weeks after the tragedy, Gates allegedly shared photos and videos of the child’s full-face and internal organs on Instagram without the couple’s consent.