A jury in Georgia has awarded $2.25 million to the parents of a baby who was decapitated during delivery—and whose autopsy was later posted on social media without their consent.
The parents, Jessica Ross and Treveon Taylor, will receive $2 million in compensatory damages and another $250,000 in punitive damages from Dr. Jackson Gates and his Atlanta-based business, Medical Diagnostic Choices, NBC News reports.
The jury’s decision comes after the tragic 2023 delivery of their son, Baby Isaiah, and months after the couple filed a lawsuit accusing Gates of invasion of privacy, fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
“While we are pleased that a jury punished Dr. Jackson Gates for his reprehensible behavior, nothing can ease the pain that the parents, Jessica Ross and Treveon Isaiah Taylor, Sr., have experienced in losing their baby boy in such a horrific way,” the family’s attorneys said in a statement.
As ESSENCE previously reported, the traumatic delivery occurred on July 10, 2023, at Southern Regional Medical Center in Riverdale, Georgia. According to the lawsuit, the baby did not properly descend during labor—likely due to shoulder dystocia, a complication that occurs when a baby’s shoulder becomes stuck behind the mother’s pubic bone.
Ross’s obstetrician, Dr. Tracey St. Julian, allegedly attempted a vaginal delivery using “ridiculously excessive force,” which the lawsuit claims led to Isaiah’s decapitation. “Ross asked for a Cesarean section while the baby was viable,” their attorney, Roderick Edmond, said at a 2023 news conference. “Instead, she was told to keep pushing for three hours.” An emergency C-section was eventually performed, but the baby was already deceased.
Just two days later, on July 12, Ross contracted Gates to perform a private autopsy for $2,500. What happened next only deepened the couple’s pain.
Without their permission—verbally or in writing—Gates posted videos to Instagram showing “in graphic and grisly detail a postmortem examination of the decapitated, severed head of Baby Isaiah,” as well as footage of the baby’s body, according to the lawsuit. At the time, Gates’ account reportedly featured similar videos from other autopsies. That Instagram account has since been taken down, but he still has at least one YouTube account.
“After the decapitation of their baby, Gates poured salt into the couple’s already deep wounds when he betrayed them,” the family’s attorneys said. The parents sent Gates a cease-and-desist letter in August 2023 demanding the immediate removal of the videos. They filed a lawsuit the following month.
Gates defended his actions in a 2024 interview with NBC News, claiming he did not violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). “I have not violated HIPAA. It is not required by a physician to get consent to report a crime or some sort of health issue to the public,” Gates said. “I’ve been doing this for 15 years, publishing my autopsy cases to explain to the public the victimization of those persons who have died.”
In February, the Clayton County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Isaiah’s death a homicide, citing a fracture of cervical vertebrae in his spine caused by “actions of another person.”
Ross and Taylor have also sued Southern Regional Medical Center and Dr. St. Julian, who is affiliated with a private practice and not directly employed by the hospital. Their suit alleges that the hospital staff failed to act in a timely or appropriate manner, resulting in their son’s death.
Southern Regional has denied any wrongdoing, saying in a statement last year: “This unfortunate infant death occurred in utero prior to the delivery and decapitation.”