The parent or parents of any minor child under the age of eighteen years who is living with the parent or parents and who shall willfully or maliciously destroy or deface property, real or personal or mixed, or who shall willfully and maliciously inflict personal injury on another person, shall be liable to the owner of such property or to the person injured in a civil action at law for damages in an amount not to exceed five thousand dollars. This section shall in no way limit the amount of recovery against the parent or parents for their own common law negligence.
RCW 4.24.190
Action against parent for willful injury to person or property by minor—Monetary limitation—Common law liability preserved.
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case Sheikh v. Choe (2006)
Most recently applied in Schwartz v. Elerding (February 2012)
1996 c 35 s 2; 1992 c 205 s 116; 1977 ex.s. c 145 s 1; 1967 ex.s. c 46 s 1; 1961 c 99 s 1.
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.