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RCW 42.36.060

Quasi-judicial proceedings—Ex parte communications prohibited, exceptions.

Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case Organization to Preserve Agr. v. Adams Co. (1996)

Most recently applied in Families of Manito v. City of Spokane (January 2013)

1984 c 191 s 1; 1982 c 229 s 6.

How often courts cite this section

1987199020002010201320
citing decisions per year

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.

During the pendency of any quasi-judicial proceeding, no member of a decision-making body may engage in ex parte communications with opponents or proponents with respect to the proposal which is the subject of the proceeding unless that person:

(1) Places on the record the substance of any written or oral ex parte communications concerning the decision of action; and

(2) Provides that a public announcement of the content of the communication and of the parties' rights to rebut the substance of the communication shall be made at each hearing where action is considered or taken on the subject to which the communication related. This prohibition does not preclude a member of a decision-making body from seeking in a public hearing specific information or data from such parties relative to the decision if both the request and the results are a part of the record. Nor does such prohibition preclude correspondence between a citizen and his or her elected official if any such correspondence is made a part of the record when it pertains to the subject matter of a quasi-judicial proceeding.

Official source: Washington State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Washington statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.