The woman at the center of a national conversation about a woman's rights in a post-Roe v. Wade country is arguing that attorneys for Mercy Health and the Warren police department deliberately misrepresented Ohio law as a part of their defense against a lawsuit she filed against them.
 
Brittany Watts of Warren is suing Mercy Health and the Warren police department following her arrest in September 2023 following a miscarriage in her home.
 
Watts had gone to Mercy Health prior to the miscarriage and argues that hospital staff did not adequately treat her, based in part over confusion as to how best to legally proceed after the law protecting abortion rights had been overturned.
 
After leaving the hospital and returning home, Watts miscarried in her bathroom. Watts returned to St. Joseph's hospital for medical treatment, where she claims she was made to wait for hours while hospital staff asked questions and contacted police. After speaking with hospital staff, Warren police arrested Watts and charged her with abuse of a corpse before a grand jury eventually found there was not enough evidence that any crime had been committed to move forward with an indictment.
 
Watts filed a federal lawsuit against both the hospital and the Warren police department, along with specific members of the department including Detective Nick Carney, claiming they had no valid reason to file charges against her in the first place and that the hospital conspired with police to create a false narrative painting Watts as a criminal.
 
In a filing from the defense asking for immunity from the suit, the defendants point to an Ohio law regarding legal obligations when one finds a deceased body and argue that law is, in part, what gave them probable cause for pursuing criminal charges.
 
In the defense filing, they claim hospital personnel were required to report the miscarriage to police, pointing to Ohio Revised Code section 2921.22 (C)," No person who discovers the body or acquires the first knowledge of the death of a person shall fail to report the death immediately … to a law enforcement officer, an ambulance service, an emergency squad, or the coroner in a political subdivision in which the body is discovered, the death is believed to have occurred, or knowledge concerning the death is obtained."
 
In Watts' latest filing, though, her attorneys point out that this is not the complete text of the law and that the defendants have omitted a key portion. The actual text of the law reads: "No person who discovers the body or acquires the first knowledge of the death of a person shall fail to report the death immediately to
a physician or advanced practice registered nurse whom the person knows to be treating the deceased for a condition from which death at such time would not be unexpected, or to a law enforcement officer . . . ."
 
"Without the defendants' ellipsis, it is clear this law did not require them to call the police. Even assuming for the sake of argument that the fetus Plaintiff delivered was a "body" within the meaning of the law, the reporting requirement is fulfilled by a report to a physician or advanced practice nurse if the death 'would not be unexpected,'" the filing reads.
 
Watts' attorneys also argue that defendants' other claims of qualified immunity to speak to law enforcement officers don't apply because those discussions were not entered into "in good faith."
 
None of the defendants have filed a response as of yet.