ATLANTA — A Fulton County judge has ruled in favor of two parents by default in a lawsuit over a private autopsy of a decapitated baby posted on social media.
Judge Jane Morrison granted a default judgment on Thursday. The judgment was filed against Atlanta autopsy doctor Dr. Jackson Gates and his business, Medical Diagnostic Choices (MDC), after they failed to respond to a civil lawsuit filed by the baby's parents, Jessica Ross and Treveon Isaiah Taylor Sr., back in September, records show.
Ross and Taylor allege that Gates, the pathologist hired to perform an independent autopsy on their baby, shared photos and videos of the examination on social media.
That video was described as "graphic and grisly" in a legal filing from the parents. It was posted on July 14. For context, the baby died on July 10. The doctor then allegedly removed the first video and posted two more videos of the examination later that month. Lawyers previously said the couple first learned of the videos through followers of the pathologist.
"Based on the contents of his Instagram page, Defendant Dr. Gates had every intention of videotaping the postmortem examination of Baby Isaiah but withheld this information from Plaintiff and never sought their permission to do such videotaping," the parents allege in a court filing.
The lawsuit asked the judge to find Dr. Gates and MDC liable for intentional inflection of emotional distress, invasion of privacy "through intrusion into private affairs," and fraud.
In Thursday's order, Judge Morrison did not make a determination on the merits of the lawsuit's claims. Instead, she entered a default judgment in favor of the plaintiffs on procedural grounds after the doctor and MDC failed to respond to court filing deadlines.
The judge wrote that a bench trial to determine the amount of damages owed to the parents will be scheduled.
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More on the case
Back in August, Jessica Ross and her boyfriend, Treveon Isaiah Taylor, Sr., filed another lawsuit against Southern Regional Medical Center following the death of their baby during delivery. Lawyers said Ross was in labor for 10 hours. The couple was devastated after the July 9 delivery.
According to that lawsuit, there were complications during the labor, and the doctor applied “ridiculously excessive force” on the baby’s head and neck to try to deliver it, attorney Roderick Edmond, who is also a physician, said. Around three hours passed before the doctor took 20-year-old Ross for a C-section, legal documents said.
That lawsuit also alleged the hospital kept the manner of the baby's death a secret from the family for several days. In response to the allegations, Southern Regional Medical Center initially released a statement that due to patient privacy laws, they couldn't discuss a patient's care but offered thoughts and prayers to the family.
Shortly after the couple's initial lawsuit was announced, the hospital released another statement, denying the allegations and stating the doctor mentioned in the lawsuit is "not an employee of the hospital," adding they had "taken the appropriate steps in response to this unfortunate situation." They also clarified that they believed the baby died before it was born. Lawyers said that the evidence will show if this was the truth.
After the delivery occurred, the funeral home referred the family to Gates. The couple then signed a contract and paid him $2,500 to perform the private autopsy, according to the suit.