In the following cases, specified in this section, any agreement, contract, and promise shall be void, unless such agreement, contract, or promise, or some note or memorandum thereof, be in writing, and signed by the party to be charged therewith, or by some person thereunto by him or her lawfully authorized, that is to say: (1) Every agreement that by its terms is not to be performed in one year from the making thereof; (2) every special promise to answer for the debt, default, or misdoings of another person; (3) every agreement, promise, or undertaking made upon consideration of marriage, except mutual promises to marry; (4) every special promise made by an executor or administrator to answer damages out of his or her own estate; (5) an agreement authorizing or employing an agent or broker to sell or purchase real estate for compensation or a commission.
RCW 19.36.010
Contracts, etc., void unless in writing.
Applied in 112 court decisions — leading case 94 Wash. 2d 255 - Klinke v. Famous Recipe Fried Chicken, Inc. (1980)
Most recently applied in Shelcon Construction Group, LLC v. Haymond (May 2015)
2011 c 336 s 540; 1905 c 58 s 1; RRS s 5825
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Washington State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Washington statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.