Franklin Square Hospital

MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center is a large community teaching hospital in eastern Baltimore County. It has a busy emergency department, a substantial obstetrics service, operating rooms, intensive care units, and specialists handling patients whose conditions can change quickly. Most patients receive appropriate care. But when a serious mistake occurs at a hospital this large, finding out why it happened usually requires far more than reading the discharge summary.

Our Maryland medical malpractice lawyers have handled claims arising from care at Franklin Square. In one case, Miller & Zois obtained a $1.1 million jury verdict after a physician cut our client’s common hepatic duct during gallbladder surgery. The injury required another major operation and turned what should have been a relatively short recovery into a much longer hospital course.

If you believe something went wrong at Franklin Square, the first question is usually whether the result was a recognized complication or the consequence of substandard care. We answer that question by obtaining the complete record, reconstructing the medical timeline, and asking a qualified expert whether earlier or different care probably would have changed the outcome.

Our Experience With Franklin Square Malpractice Cases

Miller & Zois successfully litigated a gallbladder surgery case involving a physician practicing at Franklin Square. During a laparoscopic cholecystectomy, the physician cut our client’s common hepatic duct. The injury required extensive additional treatment and surgery. A jury returned a $1.1 million verdict for our client.

Bile duct cases are heavily contested because the defense often characterizes the injury as a known complication of gallbladder surgery. That description does not answer how the surgeon identified the anatomy, whether the surgeon obtained a critical view before cutting, what the operative report shows, and how quickly the injury was recognized. Those details determine whether the complication was unavoidable or resulted from negligence.

Our work in Franklin Square cases has also taught us something less dramatic but equally important. A family’s understanding of what happened is often incomplete because different parts of the story are scattered across nursing notes, physician entries, imaging, laboratory results, medication records, electronic timestamps, and later treatment at another hospital. The investigation has to put those pieces back in chronological order.

• You can read more about gallbladder and bile duct malpractice claims, including the medical issues that frequently control these cases.

About MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center

Franklin Square opened in Baltimore City in 1898 as a 20-bed hospital. It moved to its current Baltimore County campus in 1969 and later became part of MedStar Health. The medical center is located at 9000 Franklin Square Drive in the Rosedale and White Marsh area of eastern Baltimore County.

Current MedStar materials describe Franklin Square as a full-service hospital with approximately 348 beds and more than 80,000 emergency department visits annually. Bed and patient-volume figures can change, so the legal significance is its role as one of Maryland’s larger community hospitals rather than a particular ranking.

Franklin Square provides emergency, surgical, obstetric, pediatric, neurological, cardiac, orthopedic, oncology, and behavioral health services. That range of care produces malpractice claims involving very different medical questions. A missed pulmonary embolism case requires different experts and evidence than a shoulder dystocia case or a common bile duct injury.

A lawsuit against Franklin Square does not begin with an assumption that the hospital is generally unsafe. It begins with one patient’s treatment and a focused question: did the providers respond reasonably to the information available at the time?

Medical Malpractice Claims Involving Franklin Square

Emergency Room Delays and Misdiagnosis

Emergency medicine cases often turn on triage, reassessment, testing, and communication. A patient may arrive with symptoms that overlap several conditions. The legal question is whether the emergency team recognized the dangerous possibilities and ruled them out with reasonable urgency.

Claims arising from emergency care at Franklin Square may involve a missed stroke, aortic dissection, pulmonary embolism, heart attack, appendicitis, sepsis, meningitis, or internal bleeding. The key evidence may include the arrival time, triage category, vital signs, pain complaints, laboratory orders, imaging timestamps, nursing escalation, consultations, and discharge instructions.

Birth Injuries

Franklin Square malpractice lawsuits have included allegations involving fetal monitoring, delayed delivery, shoulder dystocia, neonatal sepsis, and failure to respond to maternal or fetal deterioration. A poor birth outcome alone does not prove negligent obstetrical care. Our lawyers compare the fetal heart tracing, labor progression, medication administration, physician notification, decision time, delivery time, cord gases, placental pathology, and neonatal records.

When timing is disputed, the electronic record can be as important as the narrative note. A late entry may describe what someone remembers. Device data, order timestamps, medication scans, telephone logs, and operating room records can show when events actually occurred.

Surgical Errors and Postoperative Care

Surgical claims may involve injury to an adjacent organ, improper hardware placement, poor alignment, retained foreign material, anesthesia errors, bleeding, infection, or failure to respond when the patient deteriorates after surgery. Some complications occur despite appropriate care. A viable malpractice claim requires evidence that the surgeon, anesthesiologist, nursing staff, or postoperative team departed from accepted care and caused additional injury.

The operative report rarely settles that question by itself. Our lawyers may obtain the consent form, anesthesia record, intraoperative imaging, instrument and implant records, pathology, recovery-room notes, postoperative laboratory results, and records from any corrective surgery.

Medication and Monitoring Errors

Medication cases can involve an excessive dose, the wrong drug, a contraindicated medication, failure to adjust for kidney function, or lack of monitoring after administration. These claims are often system cases. The prescription, pharmacy review, barcode scan, administration, laboratory monitoring, and response to warning signs may involve several people and departments.

Patient Supervision and Hospital Safety

Patients with dementia, confusion, sedation, fall risk, or behavioral health concerns may need enhanced observation. A supervision claim requires more than proof that the patient fell, wandered, or suffered an injury. The records must show what risks were known, what precautions were ordered, whether those precautions were followed, and whether reasonable supervision probably would have prevented the harm.

What Our Lawyers Investigate

Medical malpractice cases begin with the records, but they do not end there. We have reviewed cases that initially appeared to involve blatant malpractice and found a reasonable medical explanation. We have also seen questionable cases become much stronger after the complete chart exposed an ignored test result, a long delay, or a breakdown between departments.

Depending on the claim, our investigation may include:

• The complete Franklin Square chart rather than a patient portal summary
• Emergency triage and reassessment records
• Physician, nursing, pharmacy, and respiratory therapy notes
• Medication orders and the medication administration record
• Laboratory results, imaging reports, and original imaging files
• Fetal monitoring strips and obstetric flowsheets
• Operative, anesthesia, recovery-room, and implant records
• Consultation requests and communications between departments
• Transfer records and records from the receiving hospital
• Relevant hospital policies and clinical protocols
• Electronic audit trails when entry timing or record changes are disputed
• Medical bills, wage loss, rehabilitation records, and future-care evidence

The expert must match the issue. An emergency physician may evaluate an emergency room delay. A maternal-fetal medicine physician or obstetrician may review delivery management. A surgeon in the same specialty may assess an operative error. A life-care planner and appropriate physicians may be needed when a patient will require decades of assistance.

Where Is a Franklin Square Malpractice Lawsuit Filed?

MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center is located in Baltimore County, making the Circuit Court for Baltimore County an obvious potential venue. Some cases may also have a legally sufficient connection to Baltimore City or another Maryland county because of an additional defendant, where a defendant regularly conducts business, or other facts recognized by Maryland venue law.

The analysis is defendant-specific. A physician’s residence, the location of a medical group, the corporate relationships among defendants, and where the alleged negligence occurred may all require investigation. The patient’s preferred courthouse does not create venue by itself.

Even when a second venue is legally permitted, the defense may ask the court to transfer the lawsuit under the doctrine of forum non conveniens. The court can consider the convenience of parties and witnesses and the interests of justice. Franklin Square defendants frequently prefer Baltimore County when a plaintiff files in Baltimore City.

Venue can affect jury composition, litigation expense, scheduling, and settlement evaluation. It should be analyzed before the complaint is filed. A plaintiff should never add a weak defendant merely to reach a preferred courthouse. That tactic can distract from the medical case and create an avoidable venue fight.

Reported Lawsuits Involving Franklin Square

Franklin Square has been named in malpractice cases involving emergency care, surgery, diagnosis, birth injuries, medication, and patient supervision. The summaries below describe allegations reported in public filings. An allegation may be disputed, dismissed, settled, or rejected at trial unless an outcome is specifically identified.

• Supraventricular tachycardia and infant death. The family of a 19-day-old girl alleged that emergency providers failed to recognize and properly treat supraventricular tachycardia after she arrived pale, weak, and in shock.
• Failure to diagnose a heart attack. A wrongful death complaint alleged that Franklin Square providers failed to diagnose and treat a myocardial infarction.
• Emergency transport and vasopressor treatment. A complaint alleged that providers failed to administer vasopressors before transporting a critically ill patient, contributing to the patient’s death.
• Gallbladder surgery. Miller & Zois obtained a $1.1 million verdict after a Franklin Square physician transected our client’s common hepatic duct during gallbladder removal surgery.
• Other reported allegations. Public filings have included claims concerning failure to diagnose thromboembolic disease, delayed lung cancer diagnosis, missed aortic dissection, improper orthopedic alignment, neonatal sepsis, delayed delivery, medication dosing, anemia treatment, and supervision of a cognitively impaired patient.

The reported cases cover very different injuries and proof. Their existence does not establish a malpractice rate for Franklin Square, and unrelated outcomes do not predict the value of a new claim. They show the range of medical events that can require legal and expert review.

What Affects the Value of a Franklin Square Case?

There is no fixed payout for a malpractice case against Franklin Square. The first value driver is the injury. Permanent neurological damage, loss of organ function, paralysis, severe birth injury, amputation, and wrongful death usually carry greater potential value than a temporary complication that resolves.

Severity is only the beginning. Our lawyers also evaluate:

• How clearly the records establish a departure from accepted medical care
• Whether earlier treatment probably would have prevented or reduced the injury
• The strength and credibility of the medical experts
• Past medical bills and the cost of future treatment
• Lost income and diminished future earning capacity
• Permanent pain, disability, disfigurement, and loss of independence
• The legally available venue
• Maryland’s cap on noneconomic damages
• The number and respective responsibility of the defendants
• Whether the evidence shows an isolated mistake or a wider communication failure

Catastrophic cases often require a life-care plan. That plan may include future surgery, therapy, medication, equipment, home modification, transportation, nursing assistance, and replacement care when family members can no longer provide daily support. A defensible projection should come from the medical record and qualified professionals rather than a generic cost estimate.

A hospital’s resources do not create damages. They can affect collectability and how a case is defended. The value still comes from the injury, the strength of the proof, and the losses the evidence can establish.

Maryland Filing Requirements and Deadlines

Maryland medical malpractice claims generally must first be filed with the Health Care Alternative Dispute Resolution Office. The claimant ordinarily must also file a certificate and report from a qualified medical expert addressing the applicable standard of care, the alleged departure, and causation. Most parties later waive arbitration and proceed in circuit court, but the preliminary requirements cannot be ignored.

Maryland’s general malpractice limitations statute contains a five-year period measured from the injury and a three-year discovery period. The actual deadline can be affected by the patient’s age, when the injury occurred, when it was discovered, fraudulent concealment, the identity of the claimant, and other facts. Claims involving children require particular care because Maryland decisions have affected how portions of the statute apply to minors.

Do not calculate a Franklin Square filing deadline from a general website summary. A records request, hospital complaint, or conversation with MedStar does not necessarily stop the limitations clock. Have counsel review the complete chronology promptly.

How to Request Franklin Square Medical Records

MedStar allows patients and authorized representatives to request records through its systemwide medical records process. Some records may also be available through the patient portal. Portal access is useful, but the documents visible to a patient may not include every part of the chart needed for a malpractice investigation.

You can use MedStar’s current medical records instructions and authorization forms. MedStar Franklin Square lists its medical records department at 443-777-7268. The hospital’s mailing address is:

MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center
9000 Franklin Square Drive
Baltimore, Maryland 21237

A lawyer may request materials beyond the ordinary patient chart, including original imaging, fetal monitoring data, audit trails, internal policies, and records held by separately operated medical practices. Preserve the copy you receive and the request used to obtain it.

Franklin Square Hospital Malpractice FAQs

Can I sue MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center?

You may have a claim if a Franklin Square employee or another responsible provider violated the accepted standard of care and caused an injury. The hospital is not automatically responsible for every physician who treats a patient there. Employment, agency, consent documents, billing, and the hospital’s representations may affect which defendants belong in the case.

Does a serious complication prove malpractice?

No. Serious complications can occur during appropriate medical care. A qualified expert must usually identify what a reasonably competent provider should have done differently and explain how that failure caused additional harm.

Will the case be filed in Baltimore City or Baltimore County?

Baltimore County is a natural venue because Franklin Square is located there. Baltimore City or another county may be legally available in some cases based on additional defendants and their connections to that jurisdiction. The defense may seek a transfer even when the original venue is legally proper.

What is the average Franklin Square malpractice settlement?

There is no available average. Most settlements are confidential, and cases involving temporary injury cannot be meaningfully averaged with claims involving death or lifelong disability. Medical proof, causation, damages, venue, and the applicable cap must be evaluated in the individual case.

Can your lawyers review my records?

Yes. We begin by learning what happened, identifying the suspected error, and determining which records and experts are needed. We cannot accept every case because Maryland malpractice litigation is expensive and requires substantial injury and supporting expert proof.

Talk to a Maryland Hospital Malpractice Lawyer

If you or a family member suffered a serious injury after treatment at MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center, Miller & Zois can review what happened and determine whether the claim warrants expert investigation. We will want to know the reason for treatment, when the condition changed, what the providers told you, and what injury followed.

More Maryland Hospital Malpractice Information

• Maryland hospital malpractice claims
• Sample hospital malpractice complaint