Today, the family of JoHanna Pratt, Disability Rights Washington, and Carney Gillespie PLLP filed a suit in Pierce County Superior Court against the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) for neglect, claiming that DSHS wrongfully caused the death of JoHanna Pratt and violated state law against abuse of vulnerable adults.\
At the time of her death in 2017, Ms. Pratt lived in Rainier School, a state owned and operated institution for adults with developmental disabilities. Ms. Pratt’s death was preventable. She died because medical staff at Rainier did not take seriously her treatable but life-threatening symptoms of a pulmonary embolism following foot surgery.