 A Northern California mother's two-year quest to have her brain-dead daughter declared legally alive moved to federal court Wednesday after attempts to secure an order from a state judge ended in failure.Lawyers for the mother of 13-year-old Jahi McMath filed a lawsuit in San Francisco federal court asking that the girl be declared alive after state courts have refused to rescind the teen's death certificate. McMath was declared brain dead on Dec. 12, 2013 at the age of 13 after developing complications from surgery for sleep apnea at UCSF Benioff Oakland Children's Hospital. Winkfield says that hospital officials continually pressured her to sign documents authorizing them to take her daughter off life support, and after an intense legal battle a judge in Alameda County Superior Court ruled that McMath met the legal criteria for brain death. If that happens, insurance companies will be required to pay for her medical treatment, says lawyer Chris Dolan, who represents Jahi's family.Dolan says insurance companies are paying for Jahi's nursing care and around-the-clock treatment with a ventilator in New Jersey, the only state in the country that requires medical treatment of patients like McMath who are declared dead but show minimal brain function.McMath's family, led by her mother Nailah Winkfield, want a federal court to invalidate the death certificate so they can care for the in their home in Oakland. McMath's family filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court in March for conditional wrongful death, naming the children's hospital and surgeon Frederick Rosen as defendants. Winkfield says she "wishes to have her daughter's basic human right, to life, restored to her so that she can return to California, and specifically Oakland, the place where Winkfield and Jahi were born and raised, to be surrounded by the love and support of their family." Christopher Dolan, McMath and Winkfield's attorney, said in a statement that "the fact that the state refuses to recognize the mountain of evidence that Jahi McMath does not meet brain death criteria is the most grave of injustices."
– It's been two years since Jahi McMath's tonsil surgery went wrong, she suffered brain death, and was declared dead, and now her family wants that death certificate revoked for the now-15-year-old who remains on life support. Jahi's mom, Nailah Winkfield, is suing in federal court various entities that include the state of California to have her daughter declared legally alive, reports Courthouse News Service. She "wishes to have her daughter's basic human right, to life, restored to her so that she can return to California" from New Jersey. Jahi is currently under care in the latter state, which allows a religious exemption to rulings about brain death, notes CBS News. "I want her to have the same rights as any other disabled kid," says Winkfield, per the AP. Should Jahi leave New Jersey without such a declaration, per the suit, "she could be refused treatment, unplugged, even shot, without repercussion as she is legally dead in California." Getting the death certificate overturned would allow the family to move Jahi back to Oakland and have insurers cover her medical bills, the family attorney tells AP. Winkfield says in her lawsuit that Jahi shows signs of life, including what she calls "uncontroverted and overwhelming" evidence of brain function, and has begun to menstruate. A California state judge earlier this year upheld the death certificate; her family's lawsuit against the hospital that performed the tonsillectomy brutally detailed the surgery gone wrong.