No acknowledgment or promise shall be sufficient evidence of a new or continuing contract whereby to take the case out of the operation of this chapter, unless it is contained in some writing signed by the party to be charged thereby; except, an acknowledgment or promise made after the limitation period has expired shall not restart, revive, or extend the limitation period. This section shall not alter the effect of any payment of principal or interest.
RCW 4.16.280
New promise must be in writing.
Applied in 11 court decisions — leading case Matson v. Weidenkopf (2000)
Most recently applied in 1 Wash. 3d 711 - Copper Creek (Marysville) Homeowners Ass'n v. Kurtz (July 2023)
2019 c 377 s 2; Code 1881 s 44; 1877 p 10 s 45; 1854 p 365 s 18; RRS s 176.
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.