All appointments to and promotions to positions in the classified civil service of the office of county sheriff shall be made solely on merit, efficiency, and fitness, which shall be ascertained by open competitive examination and impartial investigation: PROVIDED, That before June 30, 1981, employees in an existing county personnel system may be transferred to newly created and classified positions within such county's sheriff's office, in order to permanently transfer the functions of these positions, without meeting the open competitive examination requirements of this section if the transfer is approved by the civil service commission created in RCW 41.14.030. No person in the classified civil service shall be reinstated in or transferred, suspended, or discharged from any such place, position, or employment contrary to the provisions of this chapter.
RCW 41.14.080
Classified service—Appointment, promotion, transfer, suspension, discharge.
Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case 119 Wash. 2d 504 - City of Pasco v. Public Employment Relations Commission (1992)
Most recently applied in Peninsula Sch. Dist. v. Public Sch. Emp. (October 1996)
1980 c 108 s 1; 1959 c 1 s 8 (Initiative Measure No. 23, approved November 4, 1958).
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.