Any city or town with a population of four hundred thousand or less may by ordinance provide for an inferior court to be known and designated as a municipal court, which shall be entitled "The Municipal Court of . . . . . . . . . (insert name of city or town)," hereinafter designated and referred to as "municipal court," which court shall have jurisdiction and shall exercise all powers by this chapter declared to be vested in the municipal court, together with such other powers and jurisdiction as are generally conferred upon such court in this state either by common law or by express statute. However, no municipal court established under this section shall have jurisdiction over any matter until six months after a notice of intent to create a new municipal court is sent to the administrative office of the courts.
RCW 3.50.010
Municipal court authorized in cities of four hundred thousand or less.
Applied in 14 court decisions — leading case City of Spokane v. County of Spokane (2006)
Most recently applied in 160 Wash. App. 567 - City of Auburn v. Gauntt (March 2011)
2024 c 61 s 1; 1984 c 258 s 103; 1961 c 299 s 50.
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.