A defendant appears in an action when he or she answers, demurs, makes any application for an order therein, or gives the plaintiff written notice of his or her appearance. After appearance a defendant is entitled to notice of all subsequent proceedings; but when a defendant has not appeared, service of notice or papers in the ordinary proceedings in an action need not be made upon him or her. Every such appearance made in an action shall be deemed a general appearance, unless the defendant in making the same states that the same is a special appearance.
RCW 4.28.210
Appearance, what constitutes.
Applied in 45 court decisions — leading case 55 Wash. 2d 718 - Dlouhy v. Dlouhy (1960)
Most recently applied in Virginia Chiu & Vincent Liew, Appellants\cross-resps. V. Brian Hoskins, Respondent\cross-apps. (August 2023)
2011 c 336 s 102; 1893 c 127 s 16; RRS s 241.
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.