The court shall, in every stage of an action, disregard any error or defect in pleadings or proceedings which shall not affect the substantial rights of the adverse party, and no judgment shall be reversed or affected by reason of such error or defect.
RCW 4.36.240
Harmless error disregarded.
Applied in 15 court decisions — leading case 74 Wash. 2d 888 - State v. Lampshire (1968)
Most recently applied in State v. Shearer (September 2014)
Code 1881 s 113; 1877 p 24 s 113; 1854 p 144 s 71; RRS s 307.
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.