Brittany Watts’s lawsuit is a federal civil rights and medical negligence case she filed on January 10, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio against Bon Secours Mercy Health, several hospital employees, an obstetrician, the City of Warren, and a Warren police officer, over her arrest and felony prosecution after she miscarried at home in September 2023. The case, Watts v. Bon Secours Mercy Health, et al. (No. 4:25-cv-00049), is assigned to Chief Judge Sara Lioi and set for a jury trial on September 14, 2026.1News From the States. Ohio Courts Still Mulling Reproductive Rights Cases, One Set to Extend Into 2026
Who Watts Sued
Watts is represented by the Chicago civil rights firm Loevy & Loevy.2Reason. Watts Complaint The original complaint named seven defendants: Bon Secours Mercy Health; Mercy Health Youngstown LLC, doing business as St. Joseph Warren Hospital; nurse Connie Moschell; nurse Jordan Carrino; obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Parisa Khavari; the City of Warren; and Warren police officer Nicholas Carney.
In August 2025, Watts filed an amended complaint that added two more defendants: hospital risk management employee Suzanne Zupko and hospital police officer Fred Raines.3Tribune Chronicle. City Woman Arrested After Miscarriage Adds 2 Names to Lawsuit
What the Lawsuit Claims
The amended complaint pleads ten counts under federal and Ohio law. The federal civil rights claims, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, allege false arrest and prosecution without probable cause under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, unconstitutional interrogation under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, a Fourteenth Amendment due process violation through fabrication of evidence, and conspiracy to deprive Watts of her constitutional rights. A separate federal claim alleges the hospital violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) by failing to provide stabilizing emergency treatment.
On the state side, Watts brings malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress against multiple defendants, negligent infliction of emotional distress against Dr. Khavari, and medical negligence against Dr. Khavari for failure to obtain informed consent, failure to inform Watts of her treatment options (including a dilation and evacuation procedure), and unreasonable delay of treatment.4Ohio Capital Journal. Watts Amended Complaint
The suit seeks compensatory damages for mental and emotional distress, deprivation of liberty, reputational harm, and pain and suffering. The complaint does not state specific dollar amounts.5Ohio Capital Journal. Ohio Woman Charged After Miscarriage Sues City of Warren, Mercy Health in Federal Court
The core factual allegations are that nurse Moschell told hospital risk management and hospital police, and then Warren police, that Watts had given birth to a viable, live baby and left it in a bucket, when Moschell allegedly knew the fetus was non-viable and had died in utero. Officer Carney is alleged to have interrogated Watts while she was disoriented and connected to IVs, and to have written police reports falsely stating Watts had removed the fetus from the toilet and placed it in a bucket while omitting that Watts said she never saw the fetus. Nurse Carrino is alleged to have entered similar false statements into Watts’s medical notes.6GovInfo. Watts v. Bon Secours Mercy Health, Memorandum Opinion and Order
How the Defendants Have Responded
Mercy Health filed its answer in March 2025, denying that Watts received improper care. The hospital said Watts left against medical advice twice, that treatment could not be completed as a result, and that its staff are entitled to the legal protections afforded to people who report suspected crimes to police.7WKBN. Mercy Health Responds to Lawsuit of Woman Who Miscarried
The City of Warren and Officer Carney denied nearly all of the allegations in their answer. Carney asserted qualified immunity, and the city invoked Ohio sovereign immunity. Both argued that Carney acted lawfully and that the arrest was supported by a probable-cause finding from a municipal court judge.8Vindicator. Warren Officer Deny Claims in Woman’s Miscarriage Suit
What the Judge Has Ruled So Far
Judge Lioi has narrowed the case but let its heart survive. In a memorandum opinion and order issued March 4, 2026, she ruled on the hospital defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings, granting it in part and denying it in part.
All four Section 1983 claims against the hospital defendants were dismissed. The court found Watts had not sufficiently alleged that the hospital employees acted as “state actors,” a prerequisite for federal civil rights claims. Judge Lioi concluded that the alleged coordination between hospital staff and Officer Carney was consistent with a typical police investigation and did not by itself show a joint conspiratorial agreement. She also applied the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine, noting that employees of the same entity cannot legally conspire with one another for Section 1983 purposes.
The state-law malicious prosecution claim, however, survived against nurses Moschell and Carrino. The court held that Watts “adequately alleges that Moschell and Carrino maliciously instituted her prosecution” by providing knowingly false information to law enforcement, and rejected the argument that Carney’s independent investigation automatically defeated the claim, calling that a fact question inappropriate for the pleading stage. The malicious prosecution claim against Zupko and Raines was dismissed because Watts had not alleged they provided specific false information or influenced the decision to prosecute.6GovInfo. Watts v. Bon Secours Mercy Health, Memorandum Opinion and Order
On the same day, Judge Lioi denied the hospital defendants’ request for leave to file an early summary judgment motion. Those defendants had argued that Watts’s deposition testimony contradicted her complaint and that the medical negligence claim against Dr. Khavari was time-barred because the required 180-day pre-suit notice was not addressed directly to Khavari. Watts’s attorneys responded that the notice was sent to Khavari’s employer with an explicit direction to inform her, which they argued Ohio law allows. The judge found the motion premature, noting that expert discovery was still ongoing, that whether Khavari actually received the notice was itself a factual dispute, and that granting leave would produce inefficient piecemeal litigation.9GovInfo. Watts v. Bon Secours Mercy Health, Memorandum Opinion and Order on Summary Judgment
What Led to the Lawsuit
On September 19, 2023, Watts went to Mercy Health–St. Joseph Warren Hospital roughly 21 weeks into her pregnancy with pain and vaginal bleeding. Doctors diagnosed a premature rupture of membranes and determined the pregnancy was no longer viable, with risks to Watts of hemorrhaging and sepsis.10CBS News. Brittany Watts, the Ohio Woman Charged With a Felony After a Miscarriage, Talks Shock of Her Arrest Her lawsuit also alleges a diagnosis of placental abruption.7WKBN. Mercy Health Responds to Lawsuit of Woman Who Miscarried
Watts alleges she waited about eight hours during that first visit without meaningful treatment or guidance about her options, then left. She returned on September 20. A hospital ethics committee was convened to review whether induction could proceed given concerns about Ohio’s abortion laws; Watts was 21 weeks and 6 days pregnant, just under the state’s 22-week threshold. The committee approved induction by mid-afternoon, but Watts, who was not told the committee had been involved, left again after roughly 10 to 11 more hours at the hospital. Early on September 22, she miscarried alone in her home bathroom, did not see the fetus, and tried to clean the toilet. Later that day, dehydrated and losing blood, she returned to the hospital. An autopsy later confirmed the fetus had died in utero.10CBS News. Brittany Watts, the Ohio Woman Charged With a Felony After a Miscarriage, Talks Shock of Her Arrest
Police searched Watts’s home, recovered the fetus from the toilet’s plumbing traps, and on October 5, 2023 arrested her. She was charged with gross abuse of a corpse, a fifth-degree felony under Ohio Revised Code § 2927.01 carrying up to one year in prison and a $2,500 fine. Watts pleaded not guilty.11New York Times. Brittany Watts Ohio Miscarriage On January 11, 2024, a Trumbull County grand jury returned a “no bill.” Prosecutor Dennis Watkins said his office had concluded Watts did not violate the statute and “respectfully disagree[d] with the lower court’s application of the law.”12CNN. Brittany Watts Miscarriage No Criminal Charges The felony charge was dismissed. The civil suit followed one year later.
What Happens Next
Fact discovery was scheduled to close on March 24, 2026, and expert discovery on June 29, 2026, with Watts’s expert disclosures due by April 24, 2026.9GovInfo. Watts v. Bon Secours Mercy Health, Memorandum Opinion and Order on Summary Judgment The jury trial is set for September 14, 2026. All defendants have denied wrongdoing.