Pierce County Jury Awards $130 Million Over Death of 2-Year-Old the State and Her Daycare Failed to Protect
After trial: As of publication, no independent source reports that DCYF or Love and Laughter Learning Centers has appealed. DCYF said after the verdict only that it was evaluating its legal options. Whether the judgment has been paid has not been publicly reported.
Won by Dearie Law Group, P.S..
A Pierce County jury awarded $130 million against the State of Washington and a South Hill daycare over the death of a 2-year-old girl who died of blunt force trauma in March 2022 after the state's child welfare agency returned her to a home where her abuser remained present and daycare staff failed to report visible injuries they had seen. After a five-week trial the jury found the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families 90% at fault and Love and Laughter Learning Centers, Inc. 10% at fault. Of that total, $52 million was awarded individually to the girl's estate, with the remainder split among four other family beneficiaries, and the jury returned a further $10 million against the mother and her boyfriend. News accounts described it as the largest verdict of its kind in Washington state history. Ray Dearie of Dearie Law Group represented the family.
What happened
On the morning of March 11, 2022, Pierce County deputies were called to an apartment complex in Parkland, Washington, after a social worker found a 2-year-old girl unresponsive. She died at the scene. The Pierce County Medical Examiner determined she had died of blunt force trauma to the head and documented older injuries consistent with prolonged abuse. Her mother's boyfriend pleaded guilty in July 2024 to first-degree manslaughter in her death and to counts of second-degree assault of a child involving other children in the home, and was sentenced to 194 months, a little over 16 years. Her mother pleaded guilty in June 2023 to first-degree criminal mistreatment and two counts of second-degree assault of a child, and was sentenced to six years.
The girl's estate sued the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families and Love and Laughter Learning Centers, Inc., the company behind the South Hill daycare she attended, arguing both had the chance to stop the abuse before it killed her and failed to act. The children had been removed from the home in April 2021 after Auburn police suspected abuse, and were returned about three months before her death. A 2021 protection order barred the mother's boyfriend from contact with her children, but evidence at trial showed the state returned the girl to a home where he remained present, and that caseworkers did not follow up on mounting warning signs, including the child missing daycare and visible injuries. Daycare staff, the evidence showed, had seen a black eye and other marks on the girl but never reported them to authorities, as mandatory reporters are required to do.
The case went to trial in Pierce County Superior Court and lasted five weeks. On April 8, 2026, the jury returned a $130 million verdict for the girl's estate against the state and the daycare, finding DCYF 90% at fault and the daycare 10% at fault. Of that total, $52 million was awarded individually to the child's estate, with the balance divided among four other family beneficiaries. The jury also returned $10 million against the mother and her boyfriend. News accounts described the result as the largest verdict of its kind in Washington state history.
Ray Dearie of Dearie Law Group represented the family. He said the verdict gave the girl a voice, and that the jury had carried the difficult burden of hearing in graphic detail what she endured and how many chances there had been to save her. The most painful part of the case, he said, was how preventable it was: all it took to save her life was one person doing their job, a call to a social worker, a report from a mandated reporter, or any attempt at follow-up by the state.
DCYF said after the verdict that it could not comment on the specifics of the matter while it evaluated its legal options, and that it remained dedicated to the safety and well-being of children. The daycare's attorney did not comment. No independent source has since reported whether either defendant has appealed.
Washington does not cap noneconomic damages in wrongful death cases. The state's damages cap was struck down as unconstitutional in 1989, and no cap applied to reduce the jury's award.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.KIRO 7 (Brittany Perry), Apr. 2026: verdict amount, the 90/10 fault split, the $52 million individual estate award and the four other beneficiaries, DCYF's return of the child despite the no-contact order, DCYF's post-verdict statement, and Ray Dearie of Dearie Law Group as counsel for the family
- 2.The News Tribune, Tacoma (Shea Johnson), Apr. 8 2026, via Yahoo News: the $10 million the jury returned against the mother and her boyfriend, the 90/10 apportionment, the daycare's South Hill location, the daycare attorney's no comment, and Ray Dearie of Dearie Law Group as counsel for the family
- 3.KOMO News, Apr. 8 2026: five-week trial length, cause of death (blunt force trauma to the head), the daycare's failure to report the black eye and other visible injuries, and the sentences in the two criminal cases
- 4.The News Tribune, Tacoma, July 2024, via Yahoo News: the guilty pleas, charges and sentences of the mother's boyfriend (first-degree manslaughter and assault of a child, 194 months) and the mother (first-degree criminal mistreatment and two counts of second-degree assault of a child, six years), the 2021 protection order, and the removal of the children in April 2021 and their return about three months before the death
- 5.The Spokesman-Review, Apr. 9 2026 (Seattle Times report by Lauren Girgis): Ray Dearie as counsel for the family, his 'preventable' quote, and DCYF's statement that it was evaluating its legal options
- 6.The Columbian, Apr. 8 2026: independent confirmation of the $130 million verdict, the Pierce County venue, and the report that it was the largest verdict of its type in Washington state history
More proven verdicts from Dearie Law Group, P.S.
All Dearie Law Group, P.S. proven verdicts →A Pierce County jury awarded Cristina Anderson $21 million in August 2023 after she was struck in a downtown Sumner crosswalk and suffered a traumatic brain injury. The driver carried $25,000 in liability coverage and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after the verdict, and the fight over who pays the rest is still in the courts.
A King County jury awarded Lesley Mettler Auld $13.1 million after she slipped on an algae-covered Seattle sidewalk in July 2021 and ruptured both quadriceps tendons. Jurors found both the City of Seattle and 14th & Dravus LLC, the owner of the adjacent apartment building, negligent, and split the fault 52 percent to the property owner and 48 percent to the city over an overgrown hedge that shaded the walkway and the moss and algae that grew under it. Auld, a longtime personal trainer and 14-time Ironman finisher, had three surgeries to repair the tendons, and her examining physicians said she would need at least three more operations on her right knee and could lose the right leg above the knee if those failed. The Washington Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in March 2026, and 14th & Dravus has since asked the state Supreme Court to take up the case.
A Snohomish County jury awarded $3 million to a woman who was sexually abused for years starting at age 13 by a Monroe police sergeant she met through the DARE program at her school. The jury found the state's child welfare agency negligent because one of its Child Protective Services investigators, a mandatory reporter who was close to the sergeant, suspected the abuse and never reported it. The same jury found the Monroe School District was not negligent. The verdict came on November 2, 2023, and judgment was entered later that month. The state appealed to Division One of the Washington Court of Appeals, and the woman separately asked the trial court to vacate the judgment and order a new trial over a recording she says the state failed to produce in discovery.
Related wrongful death verdicts
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