Medical Malpractice
This page is about medical malpractice lawsuits against Carroll Hospital in Westminster, Maryland. We discuss the hospital and look at how having this hospital as a defendant could impact the settlement amount or jury award you receive.
If you have a potential medical malpractice lawsuit involving Carroll Hospital, call our medical malpractice lawyers at 800-553-8082 to get a free online consultation.
Carroll Hospital Medical Malpractice Lawsuits
People file medical malpractice lawsuits against Carroll Hospital and the doctors and medical practices that provide care there. Often, when a claim seems to be a claim against the hospital, it is actually a claim against the individual surgeons, emergency room doctors, anesthesiologists, or other healthcare providers who treated the patient.
That distinction can matter. Some of the doctors who treat patients at Carroll Hospital are employed by separate medical practices rather than directly by the hospital. Whether Carroll Hospital can still be held responsible for a doctor’s negligence depends on the facts of the particular case.
Recent Lawsuits Against Carroll Hospital
Below are some recent medical malpractice lawsuits filed against Carroll Hospital. These are allegations made in lawsuits. The filing of a lawsuit does not mean that Carroll Hospital or any of the individual healthcare providers named in the case were negligent.
- Dorsey v. Carroll Hospital Center (2023): Plaintiffs filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Carroll Hospital Center, Pediatrix Medical Group of the Mid-Atlantic, Pediatrix of Maryland, and two physicians. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Our lawyers represented the plaintiffs. Michael Baxter represented Carroll Hospital.
- Davis v. Carroll Hospital Center (2022): Plaintiff filed a medical malpractice lawsuit naming Carroll Hospital Center, Carroll County Anesthesia Associates, and two individuals as defendants, including a Carroll Hospital nurse.
- Edwards v. Carroll Hospital Center: After a woman undergoes surgery for a paraesophageal hernia, she begins showing concerning symptoms, but doctors fail to diagnose that she is suffering from a bowel perforation. Due to the delayed diagnosis, the patient had to undergo several more surgeries and various treatments for 7 months and still has not fully recovered.
Where To File Carroll Hospital Medical Malpractice Lawsuits
Most medical malpractice lawsuits against Carroll Hospital are filed in Carroll County. Carroll County has a reputation as an awful jurisdiction to file medical malpractice claims in. For example, if you are in a mediation in a Carroll County case, either the other side or the mediator will ignore the facts and focus primarily on the fact that Carroll County is the jurisdiction.
Like most legends, the “Carroll County is awful” folklore is based on a true story. This can be a tough county for plaintiffs. But the legend is overblown and outdated. Granted, there have been a few great verdicts in Carroll County. But not many cases will go to trial.
Why? Plaintiffs’ trial lawyers are settling good cases that should probably go to trial because of the fear they have of the jurisdiction, which is based on what it was 20 years ago. Carroll County is one of those places in Maryland that has really been growing dramatically over the years and in ways that benefit personal injury victims.
Eventually, more cases will get tried, and Carroll County will shed its “impossible” jurisdiction label. We recently had a medical malpractice case that almost went to trial, but after months of hearing how the case had little value in Carroll County; the insurance company finally ponied up and paid fair settlement value for the claim.
About Carroll Hospital
Carroll Hospital is located in Westminster, which is in Carroll County, Maryland. The roots of this hospital began as early as 1917.
In 1947, the powers that be in Annapolis recommended opening a hospital in Westminster. However, it wasn’t until 1961 that Carroll County General Hospital actually opened for business. The hospital has grown significantly over the years. To give you some idea of the rural vibe of this hospital, not that long ago, patients used to ring a bell to get into the ER after hours.
Today, Carroll Hospital is a big-time medical facility. The hospital is now a 168-bed nonprofit hospital and is the only hospital in Carroll County.
In April 2015, Carroll Hospital became a subsidiary of LifeBridge Health. At the time, LifeBridge promised—or at least said it intended—to invest a quarter of a billion dollars in the hospital to expand its facilities and services. Under the affiliation agreement, Carroll Hospital retained its locally sourced board of directors.
Since joining LifeBridge Health, Carroll Hospital has expanded its cardiovascular, women’s health, pediatric outpatient and other services. In 2025, Carroll Hospital also began a $9.5 million renovation of its emergency department designed to improve patient flow, privacy and wait times.
Who Provides Emergency Room Care at Carroll Hospital?
Carroll previously contracted with Emergency Medical Associates (EMA) to provide emergency room care at Carroll Hospital.
Today, emergency medicine services at Carroll Hospital are provided through US Acute Care Solutions. USACS has an exclusive contract to staff the LifeBridge Health emergency departments.
This distinction can become important in a malpractice case. A patient may believe that the emergency room doctor treating them works for Carroll Hospital when the doctor actually works for a separate physician group. Figuring out exactly who employed the doctor and which entities may be legally responsible is part of investigating a hospital malpractice claim.
Patient Safety at Carroll Hospital
Carroll Hospital currently has a B Hospital Safety Grade from the Leapfrog Group for Spring 2026. That is an improvement from the C grades the hospital received in 2023 and 2024.
Credit where it is due. But an overall hospital safety grade does not tell you whether negligence occurred in one patient’s case. Carroll has good doctors and nurses, and bad doctors and nurses, like any hospital. Medical malpractice lawsuits do not focus on that big picture. They turn on what happened to the individual patient and whether a medical mistake caused an injury.
Carroll Hospital Defense Team
Morgan, Carlo, Downs & Everton, a Hunt Valley-based firm, has defended Carroll Hospital and handles a wide range of complex civil litigation matters. Baxter, Baker, Sidle, Conn & Jones has also defended Carroll Hospital in medical malpractice litigation.e.
Obtaining Medical Records from Carroll Hospital
The first step in any medical malpractice lawsuit is obtaining medical records to determine whether a claim is valid. Your malpractice attorney is typically going to do this for you.
Carroll Hospital now allows patients to request their medical records electronically through an online request tool. You can also contact the hospital’s Health Information Management department. The mailing address remains:
Carroll Hospital
Attention: Medical Records Request/HIM
200 Memorial Avenue
Westminster, MD 21157
Call 410-871-6870 with questions about collecting medical records.
How Much Is a Carroll Hospital Medical Malpractice Case Worth?
No special settlement formula calculates the value of a medical malpractice case against Carroll Hospital. The value of the case depends on two factors: the severity of the injury and how strong the claim is that the doctor or nurse did something wrong that caused the injury or death.
The amount of future medical care and lost income can also drive the claim’s value. In a catastrophic injury case, those economic damages can be enormous. Maryland caps noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases, but it has no similar cap on past and future medical expenses or lost earnings. This is why birth injury lawsuits get so much attention from lawyers. The future economic damages in these cases are astronomical in labor and delivery malpractice cases because the harms are too often lifelong.
Then there is Carroll County. Defense lawyers, insurance companies, and, honestly, most plaintiffs’ malpractice lawyers believe Carroll County is a difficult jurisdiction for malpractice plaintiffs. Like many things, there are kernels of truth to the belief, but some are based on a different version of Carroll County than we have today. The county has changed a ton, and juries are far more cosmopolitan (and less deferential to doctors) than they once were. And, at the end of the day, a strong malpractice case is a strong malpractice case anywhere. That said, there is no point pretending venue does not factor into how both sides evaluate settlement value. Baltimore City or Prince George’s County are much better venues in Maryland than Carroll County and that does impact, to some degree, medical malpractice settlement amounts.
Settlements and Verdicts
There are not too many plaintiffs’ verdicts out there against Carroll Hospital. Only a few claims involve Carroll Hospital’s emergency room doctors. The one verdict is listed below, and it comes with two large asterisks and a lesson for plaintiffs’ attorneys.
First, the case was filed in Baltimore City. In spite of what we have said about Carroll County not being as bad as some lawyers think, if you can get the case moved out of Carroll County to Baltimore City or a neighboring county, you are going to take the opportunity nine times out of ten. Second, the defendant in this case is not actually the hospital, but the surgeons themselves. Often, when a claim seems to be against the hospital, it is actually against the individual surgeons or emergency room doctors, who may be the hospital’s independent contractors.
Keep in mind, other cases have been filed against this hospital. Did these cases settle? We assume many did, but have no specific facts.
- $3,000,000 Verdict – A 70-year-old man was admitted to Carroll Hospital with an upper gastrointestinal bleed after repeatedly vomiting blood. The doctor caring for him in the hospital’s critical care unit diagnosed hemorrhagic shock but ordered only one unit of blood. The patient continued vomiting blood throughout the night, reportedly more than 20 times, but a surgical consultation was not ordered until shortly before the doctor’s shift ended. The patient later suffered cardiac arrest from blood loss and never regained consciousness. A Baltimore County jury found that the doctor’s negligence caused the patient’s death and awarded his family $3 million. The defendant was the doctor practicing at Carroll Hospital, not Carroll Hospital itself.
- $574,510 Verdict – A 75-year-old woman returned to Carroll Hospital’s emergency room with severe hip and pelvic pain after she had recently been treated for deep vein thrombosis and a pulmonary embolism and placed on blood thinners. Despite her severe pain and difficulty walking, the lawsuit alleged that the emergency room providers failed to order imaging or other testing to determine whether she was suffering from internal bleeding. She was transferred to a nursing home, returned to Carroll Hospital the following day in hemorrhagic shock, and was found to have a large hematoma and an INR of 9.9. She later died. A Carroll County jury awarded her estate and family $574,510.50. The defendants included Emergency Medicine Associates (eventually bought up by US Acute Care) and the emergency room providers rather than Carroll Hospital itself.
- $2,134,339 Verdict – A patient presents to Carroll Hospital for surgery to repair a hernia. The hernia actually occurred in the patient’s diaphragm, meaning surgery was necessary to avoid organ damage. After surgery, the hernia comes back. The same surgeon performs a subsequent surgery, using mesh to close the hole in the patient’s diaphragm. After the second surgery, the hole continued to leak, requiring nine additional surgeries. The patient is left with a permanent hernia, which forced her to eat through a tube for months. Although she can eat normal food again, she must eat in extremely small amounts. She has to wear a special girdle and cannot bend over as a result of the initial failed surgery. The patient sues the surgeon, claiming that the mesh that was used was an improper material to repair the hole in her diaphragm. The principal issue at trial is whether this was an appropriate medical practice. The jurors find that the surgeon obtained informed consent to use the mesh but was negligent in how he performed the surgery. They return a $2,134,339 verdict, which included a $750,000 loss of consortium award for the patient’s husband.
Carroll Hospital Medical Malpractice FAQs
Can You Sue Carroll Hospital for Medical Malpractice?
Yes. If medical negligence at Carroll Hospital caused an injury, you may have a malpractice claim against the hospital, an individual doctor, a separate medical practice, or some combination of defendants. The battlefield here often centers on whether doctors who are not hospital employees can be held responsible Which parties are responsible depends on who provided the care and the relationship between the doctor and the hospital.
Does Carroll Hospital Employ the Emergency Room Doctors?
Most people assume the ER doctors at a hospital work for the hospital. This is rarely true. At Carroll Hospital, emergency physicians are actually employees of US Acute Care Solutions. That means a malpractice claim involving emergency room treatment may involve USACS or an individual emergency physician, in addition to or instead of Carroll Hospital itself.
How Long Do You Have to Sue Carroll Hospital?
Maryland generally requires a medical malpractice claim to be filed within the earlier of three years from discovery of the injury or five years from the time the injury was committed. There are exceptions, including special rules for minors. You definitely should not assume that you have five years to file a claim. Call a lawyer and find out what they (or we) believe the deadline to file is.
Where Is a Carroll Hospital Malpractice Lawsuit Filed?
Almost all Carroll Hospital malpractice lawsuits that proceed to court will be filed in Carroll County Circuit Court. Some cases can be filed in federal court when the requirements for federal jurisdiction are met (usually an out-of-state plaintiff).
Contact Our Malpractice Lawyers
If you believe that you have a valid medical malpractice claim against Carroll Hospital, or really any medical care provider in the State of Maryland, call our medical malpractice team at 800-553-8082 to get a free online consultation.