Justice scales, books and wooden gavel. Getty Images.
An Ohio woman who was criminally charged after having a miscarriage in her home has filed a federal lawsuit against an the city of Warren, city police officers, a local hospital and its owners.
Brittany Watts filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio Eastern Division claiming violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment, along with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a law that establishes the right for anyone to be admitted to a hospital in an emergency situation regardless of their ability to pay or insurance status, and for them to receive “necessary stabilizing treatment,” according to Watts’ attorneys from the firm Loevy & Loevy.
Watts also accused law enforcement of malicious prosecution and false arrest, and health care professionals with medical negligence, unauthorized disclosure of confidential medical information, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, according to the lawsuit filed Jan. 10.
Watts was charged with abuse of a corpse in September 2023 after suffering a miscarriage at her home in Warren, a case that received national and international attention. A grand jury would later decline to return an indictment, meaning her criminal charges went away.
“While Ms. Watts was relieved that the truth had prevailed, the closing of the criminal case did not erase the harm defendants’ misconduct caused,” attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.
Before the miscarriage occurred, Watts had gone to St. Joseph Warren Hospital in Youngstown, where she was diagnosed with “placental abruption,” a condition that “endangered her pregnancy,” according to attorneys writing on Watts behalf to the federal court.
Placental abruption occurs when the placental “partly or completely separates from the inner wall of the uterus before delivery,” which can reduce or eliminate the oxygen and nutrient supply to the fetus, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Watts waited for eight hours with “no meaningful treatment or guidance,” and came back the next day to find out her water had prematurely broken, her cervix was dilated, and she had an infection.
“Her pregnancy was doomed, her doctor told her; and until the fetus was removed, Ms. Watts was at risk of hemorrhaging, sepsis and death,” the lawsuit stated. “Time was of the essence.”
She sat “effectively untreated” for another 10 more hours, attorneys told the court, eventually leaving for home again.
Early the next day, the miscarriage occurred in her bathroom, covering her toilet and bathroom in “tissue, blood and blood clots.” The fetus, which attorneys say was less than one pound, was never seen amidst the “bloody mess.”
“Nothing suggested she had delivered a living fetus, and indeed she had not,” the suit stated.
The woman cleaned up as best she could, and went back to St. Joseph Warren. Hospital staff then called police and “falsely” reported Watts had committed a crime, leading to police officers coming to the hospital to “interrogate” Watts and going to Watts home while she was in the hospital.
“She faced a year in prison for simply having a miscarriage at home,” attorneys wrote.
Included with the lawsuit was an affidavit from Dr. Joy Cooper, an OB/GYN who reviewed the medical records available for Watts. In reviewing the medical records, Cooper alleged that Dr. Parisa Khavari, one of the named parties in the case, “breached the standard of care when treating Ms. Watts by failing to provide proper medical treatment to Ms. Watts.”
The lawsuit states that a police detective and hospital staff questioned Watts for “nearly an hour” as she was in the hospital, with “false promises of leniency,” and even suggesting to Watts that she “had birthed a live baby and hidden it ‘in a cabinet.’”
An autopsy showed the fetus had died in utero, according to court documents, but Watts’ attorneys claim the investigating officer, Detective Nicholas Carney, “set out to present a version of events in which Ms. Watts had given birth to a baby she thought may be alive and had then abused it.”
Despite the fact that the criminal case is behind her, the lawsuit states that Watts “has not recovered.”
“As a proximate result of defendants’ actions, Ms. Watts suffered deprivation of liberty, reputational harm, public humiliation, distress, pain and suffering, for which she is entitled to compensatory damages, including damages for mental and emotional distress,” attorneys wrote.
The defendants in the lawsuit have not yet filed their responses.
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