They asked court to curtail admissions at 'dangerous' Rainier School. Here's the outcome

Mar. 27—A nonprofit advocacy group for people with disabilities voluntarily dismissed a federal lawsuit that claimed the state-run home was "a dangerous place to live" and sought to prevent it from admitting any new or returning residents.

Disability Rights Washington sued Department of Social and Health Services Secretary Jilma Meneses and Washington State Health Care Authority director Susan Birch in September 2022. The suit alleged that the residential home for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities, located in Buckley, failed to give appropriate care to a current and former resident who were originally plaintiffs in the case.

On March 22, lawyers for the nonprofit and two defendants filed a joint stipulation to dismiss the claims, which U.S. District Judge Robert J. Bryan granted on Monday, closing the case, court records show.

It was not immediately clear why Disability Rights Washington, which did not respond to messages by deadline Tuesday, moved for a voluntary dismissal. Darrell Cochran, an attorney whose firm worked on behalf of the nonprofit until withdrawing March 22, deferred comment to Disability Rights Washington.

Meneses and Birch, who were sued in their official capacities, denied the lawsuit's allegations in responses in court. Both were represented by the state's Attorney General's Office, which deferred comment to their clients.

"DSHS appreciates Rainier staff and their commitment to resident care and safety," DSHS spokesperson Lisa Pemberton said in a statement. "Treating our clients with compassion, respect and dignity has been and will continue to be a top priority."

Katie Pope, a spokesperson for the Health Care Authority, said in an email, "HCA, as the state single Medicaid agency, does not operate Rainier, but we value the hard work of the staff and their dedication to caring for and keeping residents safe. This is crucial to those we serve."

DSHS operates Rainier School, while HCA provides oversight for it and other Medicaid-funded facilities.

Rainier School, opened in 1939, has a documented history of problems. A former supervisor was sentenced for rape of one resident and inappropriately touching another in 2018. Since 2020, the state has been ordered to pay nearly $8 million to families in cases where a wheelchair-bound foster child nearly drowned during a group outing, a man went missing and was never found and a woman died from a pulmonary embolism after bunion surgery.

In December 2022, it was announced that one of two remaining facilities at the home would shut down by July 31, 2023, and more than four dozen residents would leave. The move came as part of a settlement agreement between DSHS and HCA after the authority said it would end certification for Rainier School's PAT C Intermediate Care Facility, which had been out of Medicaid program compliance for more than a year and a half.

Prior to the PAT C facility's closure, there were 124 total residents at Rainier School, The Courier-Herald reported.

The federal case, filed three months before that announcement, went further than past lawsuits against Rainier School, Cochran previously said, as it pursued court intervention to effectively shut down the residential home absent major changes. A then-45-year-old woman and a then-20-year-old man, both with developmental disabilities, were named as plaintiffs.

The woman arrived in February 2022 to a Rainier School housing unit set up in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. There, she allegedly didn't have access to the level of care she enjoyed in the residential home from which she arrived, according to the suit, including needed dental or optometry appointments and a timely behavior support plan.

The man came to Rainier School in 2020 and staff allegedly mismanaged their response to his tendencies to be verbally and physically abusive, the suit claimed. After the home terminated his residency, he was eventually institutionalized in a hospital setting without any community-based care options at the time the case was filed.

After the court ruled that the man lacked standing to sue because he hadn't been seeking damages for past events but only forward-looking injunctive relief, he was excluded as a plaintiff in an amended complaint filed in December 2022, court records show. The woman was also dismissed from the litigation after a joint stipulation by all parties in September 2023, in which it was stated that she was no longer a resident at Rainier School.

In a March 19 ruling related to a dispute over the presentation of evidence in the case, Bryan noted the long road ahead.

"This case is already some 18 months old with trial approximately nine months away. The details of Plaintiff's case remain unclear," he wrote. "All parties should be concerned about the admissibility of evidence and claims. In the interval between now and trial, much remains to be done."

The case was soon after dismissed without prejudice, meaning it could be re-filed. It was unclear whether Disability Rights Washington would do so.

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