Juror's podcast prompts judge to toss $40 million verdict against Presbyterian

A weekly podcast aired by a jury foreperson prompted a judge to toss a $40 million verdict against Presbyterian Healthcare Services and open the door to a new trial in the medical negligence case.

The judge ordered a mistrial in the case after finding that comments the foreperson expressed in her podcast indicated a bias against Presbyterian and health care providers generally.

The June 2 verdict followed a two-week trial in 2nd Judicial District Court before District Judge Denise Barela-Shepherd. The award included $15 million in punitive damages against Presbyterian.

Jurors also awarded nearly $25 million to the child, now 6, and a total of $825,000 to the boy’s parents, Samantha and Patrick Leonard. The couple alleged that Presbyterian personnel failed to diagnose the infant’s low blood glucose levels after the child’s birth in April 2019, resulting in brain damage and permanent developmental effects.

Attorneys for Presbyterian sought a new trial in July, arguing that “the jury foreperson, in her zeal to sit on the jury, concealed her biased opinions about our nation’s health care system.”

The foreperson, Rebecca Allen, hosts a weekly podcast called Becca Mari’s Freedom Speak that reveals “long-held biases toward health care providers which she failed to disclose” during jury selection, Presbyterian’s attorneys argued in a motion seeking a new trial.

“PHS has since learned Ms. Allen published multiple episodes over the course of the trial in which she discussed her jury service, and the trial, both during and immediately after the trial,” the motion said. Presbyterian attorneys took issue with Allen’s views on the COVID-19 pandemic, which she referred to as the “scamdemic,” and her criticism of the COVID vaccine, which she called the “clot shot.”

One of the podcasts was recorded on May 25, about halfway through the trial, in which Allen discussed her service on the jury. She also said other jurors were aware of her podcast and “might be listening today,” the motion said.

The Leonards’ attorney, Lisa Curtis, responded that Presbyterian failed to show that Allen was biased and had no grounds to seek a mistrial. Allen’s opinions about the COVID-19 pandemic “are irrelevant in a case that had nothing to do with COVID-19. Nor can they be imputed to her overall opinion of the medical field or PHS, specifically.”

Curtis argued that Allen admitted during jury selection that she hosted a podcast and had “opinions” about medical care.

“Jurors can have opinions, even strong opinions, and even strong opinions that PHS, or the Court, disagree with — that does not automatically make them biased,” Curtis argued.

Curtis said in a written statement on Friday, “We respect jurors and the right to jury trial as a fundamental part of a democratic country.”

Judge Barela-Shepherd granted the mistrial and vacated the jury’s verdict in an Oct. 22 order.

“Based on Allen’s statement, the Court concludes that she was biased against (Presbyterian),” Barela-Shepherd wrote. “Allen’s statements demonstrate that her negative views of medical care providers, corporations, and hospitals, perhaps shaped during the pandemic, were durable, continuing up to and through trial.”

Allen disputed the finding Friday and denied that she discussed the trial during her May 25 podcast.

“They just totally validated all of the things I’ve ever said about how I think it’s harder and harder to get a fair trial in this country these days,” Allen said Friday in a phone interview.

“I wasn’t talking about the details of the trial on that (May 25) show,” she said. “I was just being very generalized about serving on a jury.”

Allen said she discussed the trial in her podcast only after the jury returned the verdict and that she had been “open and honest” about her role as a conservative podcast host before she was selected as a juror.

“I’m skeptical,” Allen said. “I am skeptical about personal injury lawyers. I am skeptical about politicians. I am skeptical about health care when it gets mixed up with corporations.”

Allen acknowledged that she has expressed opinions on her podcast critical of corporate medical care, physicians and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“But as far as the trial goes, everything that me and the other 11 jurors did during that trial was based on just the evidence and the testimony provided to us during the trial,” she said.