When in the opinion of any federal court before whom a proceeding is pending, it is necessary to ascertain the local law of this state in order to dispose of such proceeding and the local law has not been clearly determined, such federal court may certify to the supreme court for answer the question of local law involved and the supreme court shall render its opinion in answer thereto.
RCW 2.60.020
Federal court certification of local law question.
Applied in 78 court decisions — leading case 118 Wash. 2d 46 - Wilmot v. Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. (1991)
Most recently applied in Shawnna Montes v. Sparc Group, LLC (May 2025)
1965 c 99 s 2.
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.