A person who communicates a complaint or information to any branch or agency of federal, state, or local government, or to any self-regulatory organization that regulates persons involved in the securities or futures business and that has been delegated authority by a federal, state, or local government agency and is subject to oversight by the delegating agency, is immune from civil liability for claims based upon the communication to the agency or organization regarding any matter reasonably of concern to that agency or organization. A person prevailing upon the defense provided for in this section is entitled to recover expenses and reasonable attorneys' fees incurred in establishing the defense and in addition shall receive statutory damages of ten thousand dollars. Statutory damages may be denied if the court finds that the complaint or information was communicated in bad faith.
RCW 4.24.510
Communication to government agency or self-regulatory organization—Immunity from civil liability.
Applied in 74 court decisions — leading case Margolis v. Ryan (1998)
Most recently applied in Kevin P. Clare v. Telquist McMillen Clare PLLC (December 2021)
2002 c 232 s 2; 1999 c 54 s 1; 1989 c 234 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.