A law firm filed notice in late May on behalf of nine additional adults who say county employees sexually abused them decades ago while they were locked up as children. The filing brings the total number of claimants against a Washington county to seventeen.
Reviewed by Survivor Justice Alliance · Updated 2026-10-21
Figures reflect claimants represented by a law firm in filings against the county, as of late May 2026.
Nine more adults came forward in late May with formal notice that they intend to sue a Washington county, alleging that corrections staff sexually abused them as children while they were detained at the county's Juvenile Justice Center. The claimants say the abuse occurred between 1990 and 2014, when they were between 12 and 17 years old, and describe a pattern of guards isolating children in secluded areas of the facility, including closets, shower areas, and individual cells.
The filings describe more than isolated misconduct. According to the claimants, some staff used threats, including longer confinement and the loss of family visitation, to keep children silent, while others offered small rewards to secure their cooperation. Because the alleged victims were incarcerated minors with no ability to leave the building or easily reach an outside adult, attorneys for the claimants argue the facility itself created the conditions that allowed the abuse to continue for years.
The late-May filing does not start a new case from scratch. It builds on a lawsuit eight other survivors filed against the county in February, which made strikingly similar allegations about the same detention center and the same time period. With the nine new claimants added, the total number of people now asserting abuse claims tied to the facility has grown to seventeen.
Under Washington's tort claim process, the new claimants must first give the county formal notice and a waiting period before they can file suit directly, which is why the development is described as a notice of claim rather than a new complaint. Attorneys involved in the case have indicated they expect additional survivors to come forward once they see the initial claimants' filings become public.
Cases like this one are built around a specific legal theory: that a government agency responsible for the custody and safety of children can be held civilly liable when it fails to supervise, train, or discipline the employees to whom it hands that responsibility. The claimants are not simply alleging that individual guards broke the law. They are alleging that the county's own oversight, or the lack of it, allowed abuse to continue undetected across multiple decades.
That distinction matters because it shifts the legal and financial exposure from any one accused staff member to the government body itself. For survivors of abuse inside a locked facility, where reporting options are limited and children often have no one they trust to tell, civil claims against the institution that ran the facility are frequently the only realistic path to accountability decades after the fact.
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Abuse that happens inside a juvenile detention facility raises legal questions that differ from abuse in a school or church setting. These are the basics survivors and families often ask about first.
The Survivor Justice Alliance is a civil-justice information resource, not a law firm; nothing here is legal advice. Attorney advertising. Support is available 24/7 at the RAINN hotline, 800-656-4673.
Many states have changed their laws to allow older sexual abuse claims to proceed, particularly for abuse that occurred while someone was a minor. A licensed attorney in your state can review your specific situation.
Institutional claims target the government body's alleged failure to supervise, train, or remove dangerous staff, which is often the only path to meaningful accountability when the individual accused cannot pay a judgment.
No. Survivors in these cases are commonly permitted to proceed using a placeholder identifier to protect their privacy.
The legal theories used here, institutional failure to supervise and protect children in custody, apply broadly. A consultation can help you understand your specific state's rules.