The Plateau’s Rainier School is coming under fire for several alleged incidents of neglect, harm, and death over the last several years, resulting in a lawsuit asking for the facility to decline new admissions and to force the overseeing state departments to address serious deficiencies.

The lawsuit, filed Sept. 2, alleges the state facility is “a dangerous place to live” as its “mistreatment and neglect within its walls have maimed, hospitalized, and killed residents”, violating several federal and state statutes.

Disability Rights Washington, a state nonprofit that investigates allegations of abuse and neglect at care facilities around the state, is leading the charge.

“DRW has been investigating instances of abuse and neglect at Rainier School and advocating for safer conditions for years,” Beth Leonard, staff attorney, said in a recent email interview. “However, despite our ongoing advocacy efforts, Rainier School remains dangerous, and the state continues to use it to serve vulnerable individuals with disabilities including admitting new residents to the facility. DRW could not stand by while our constituents continue to be harmed, or be at serious risk of harm, in this dangerous and isolated facility.”

Also named in the lawsuit as plaintiffs are two individuals, identified only as G.G. and A.M.

According to the lawsuit, G.G. needed one-to-one, 24/7 protective supervision. However, when admitted to Rainier School, he was placed in an intermediate care facility that was previously flagged as being unable to adequately care for residents that needed such protections, putting those patients at risk. In G.G.’s case, this resulted in being physically restrained during incidents of aggression, rather than “positive behavior support”, and the use of pharmaceuticals to manage his behavior.

G.G. threatened suicide in February and was sent to a hospital for emergency psychiatric evaluation. He told hospital staff he did so because he was bored; the lawsuit alleges when G.G. told Rainier School staff so, his workdays were reduced.

Hospital staff were also concerned about the “significant” and “excessive” amount of medication prescribed to G.G. while he was a Rainier School resident, and noted that the medication may have “possible side effects of akathisia (restlessness), anxiety, and mood instability”.

G.G. was eventually deemed ready to return to the Rainier School, but the facility declined to take him back, so he remains in the hospital.

A.M. started as a resident of the Fircrest School, another state-run mental health facility, but was transferred to the Rainier School last February. Like G.G., the lawsuit alleges A.M. did not receive adequate care; staff allegedly failed to develop a behavior support plan until five months after she became a resident (state policy is a plan needs to be developed within 30 days), and after a support plan was created, staff failed to follow the plan on at least two occasions, causing her “physical and emotional harm.”

In sum, the lawsuit claims the Rainier School is in violation of the 14th Amendment, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and Washington’s Law Against Discrimination by failing “to meet [its] affirmative duty to protect Plaintiffs from harm” or risk of harm, and that the Rainier School’s “‘methods of administration’” subject the plaintiffs to “unnecessary and unjustified segregation” or puts them at risk of such.

The Department of Social and Health Services declined to comment on the pending litigation, but media relations manager Lisa Pemberton said “that our priority is to always do what is in the very best interest and safety for our clients.”

While the lawsuit is largely against the Rainier School, the defendant is Jilma Meneses, Acting Secretary of the state’s DSHS, which oversees the facility.

The first page of the lawsuit against Jilma Meneses, Acting Secretary of Washington’s Department of Social Health Services, which runs The Rainier School. Screenshot

OTHER INCIDENTS OF HARM, DEATH

While G.G. and A.M. are the only individuals involved in this lawsuit, the lawsuit cited other incidents where a lack of adequate care at the Rainier School allegedly led to injury or death.

Last June, DRW was informed a resident had to undergo emergency eye surgery to remove the organ after Rainier staff failed to treat an eye infection. DRW claims staff failed to administer the man’s antibiotic eye drops and failed to monitor the situation until it became an emergency.

Last December, DRW said it received a notice that a facility resident choked to death on their food. The organization claimed its investigation revealed the man was known to be at risk for choking, and that he acquired the food from an improper source and ate at a fast pace. Prior to the incident, DRW said Rainier School received a recommendation that he undergo a swallow study, but staff did not perform one.

In May 2021, DRW was notified that a female resident was hospitalized after drinking cleaning fluid; the nonprofit alleges the woman had a history of ingesting inedible items, and even swallowed a lightbulb and drank cleaning fluid within the first four months of her being admitted.

In early 2020, Joel A. Wellman left the facility and was never found, even after a weekend-long search involving more than 100 first responders, various officials, and volunteers. Wellman’s family said the Rainier School was well aware of his penchant for wandering away, but the facility never adjusted his supervision; an official complaint was lodged, alleging the Rainier School did not provide Wellman with adequate care.

Finally, in November 2017, resident JoHanna Pratt died after staff allegedly failed to watch for signs of a blood clot after a foot surgery was performed, even though staff were made aware of the “well-known” risk; a 2020 lawsuit also alleged staff failed to seek immediate medical assistance that could have saved her life when Pratt went into cardiac arrest. This incident was not mentioned in this current lawsuit, but was reported on by The Courier-Herald at the time.

DRW further alleges that many of the deficiencies in care and supervision that led to several of these incidents were not addressed immediately, as noted by state surveyors, putting other residents at risk and threatening Rainier School’s certification.

“Over the past two years, state regulators have found at least four separate times that Rainier School is putting residents at immediate risk of serious harm, injury, and death. Currently, about 60 residents are facing loss of their home and traumatic disruption in their service because federal regulators are likely to decertify and therefore defund part [of] Rainier School,” DRW’s Leonard said. “Rainier School’s deficiencies are systemic and the state’s efforts to correct them have failed.”

REQUEST FOR RELIEF

As relief, the plaintiffs are asking the United States District Court, Western District (Tacoma) to order the Rainier School to no longer admit new residents; discharge A.M. to an alternative service setting that can meet her needs; contract with an independent consultant to monitor the services provided to current residents; to require the facility discharge, with appropriate planning and support, any resident who chooses to move; and come up with new care plans for remaining residents.

G.G., A.M., and Disability Rights Washington also asks the court to rule that the Developmental Disabilities Administration (a state department that works with those with disabilities and their families and partly oversees the Rainier School) contract with an independent consultant to study “the deficiencies in DDA’s crisis stabilization services and residential supports” and develop “systemic improvements to end or reduce [the Department of Social and Health Services’] reliance on the Rainier School”, which the DSHS would then need to implement.