In Waltson v. Boeing Co., a 5-4 majority of the Washington Supreme Court held that Boeing did not have actual knowledge in 1985 that asbestos exposure would cause certain injury and that its former employee was therefore only entitled to worker’s compensation payment for the cost of the mesothelioma that likely resulted from that exposure.  While evidence showed Boeing knew that asbestos caused cellular damage and posed a risk of mesothelioma, the Court held that awareness of risk was not sufficient to defeat an employer’s tort immunity under the worker’s compensation system.  Had Boeing known that asbestos would cause certain injury, the employee’s estate would have been able to put aside worker’s compensation to sue Boeing for torts related to his disease and death.
Continue Reading Seeking Absolutes in a World of Probabilities: Washington Supreme Court Finds Mesothelioma to be Risk of Asbestos Exposure Rather than a Certain Harm

In State v. Hawkins, the Supreme Court reinstated a trial court’s grant of a new trial for newly discovered evidence after the Court of Appeals overturned that decision.  The decision is highly fact specific, and fascinating for mystery buffs, but the take away is clear: just as defendants can’t lightly disturb trial court rulings against

Washington has allowed people to be involuntarily detained if they are a risk to themselves or others or are gravely disabled under the Involuntary Treatment  Act (ITA) since 1977 – first for a short period of evaluation, then for treatment.   Close of observers of modern mental health trends will not be surprised to learn that

In State v. Barton, the Washington Supreme Court examined the mandate found in Article I, section 20 of the Washington State Constitution that criminal defendants “shall be bailable by sufficient sureties.”  The Court interpreted the phrase to mean that a criminal defendant has the right to make bail by using a surety, i.e., a third

Renters want to vindicate their rights without fear of retaliation.  Landlords want to know as much as they can about the people who seek to live in their property.  In Hundtofte v. Encarnacion a fractured Supreme Court resolved a conflict between those two impulses in favor of the landlords.  Renters can force their landlord to sue to evict them if they feel they are being unjustly ushered out of their apartment.  But renters will not be able to keep that lawsuit secret from future landlords who might be wary of renting to litigation-prone tenants.  In order to decide this issue, the Court gave something very much like standing to the county clerk who opposed a Superior Court order to amend county indices.
Continue Reading In Renters v. Landlords, the County Clerk Wins

In State v. Jordan, a unanimous Washington Supreme Court ruled that a trial court properly increased a defendant’s prison sentence because he had been previously convicted of manslaughter in Texas, even though Washington has more forgiving self-defense laws than Texas.   The court held that sentencing judges may properly consider the fact that a defendant

In State v. Andre Luis Franklin, five State Supreme Court justices reversed a defendant’s convictions after concluding the trial court erred in excluding evidence to further the defendant’s “other suspect” defense.  The defendant, Franklin, was in pseudo-relationships with two different women, Hibbler and Fuerte, and the women had a history of jealousy with one another.  Soon after Franklin loaned some money to Fuerte, Fuerte began receiving emails from an unknown email address threatening to post compromising pictures of her online.  These emails were purportedly from Franklin.
Continue Reading State v. Franklin – State Supreme Court Divided Over Discretion

In the Matter of the Personal Restraint of Gomez, the Washington Supreme Court rejected a collateral attack on a mother’s conviction for killing her child through abuse. The Court ruled that the Spanish-speaking client did not deserve a new trial even though her lawyer only spoke English and also represented the child’s father in a dependency proceeding. Perhaps lost in translation or clouded by the lawyer’s conflicting duties to the father was the fact that the mother may not have abused the child and that the child might have died because he suffered epilepsy. Finality trumped process in this case and may have kept an innocent person in prison.


Continue Reading No comprende? No problema. Washington’s Supreme Court accepts poor performance by defense lawyer who didn’t speak the same language as his client

In a unanimous decision, the Washington Supreme Court clarified Washington’s Criminal Court Rules by holding that it is within the trial court’s discretion to provide preliminary rulings on jury instructions during trial. The Court then affirmed Ronald Mendes’s second degree murder conviction after rejecting his argument that he was “compelled” to testify in his defense.
Continue Reading Discretion Prevails: Trial Courts May Rule on Jury Instructions When Asked…or Not