In case any public service company shall do, cause to be done or permit to be done any act, matter or thing prohibited, forbidden or declared to be unlawful, or shall omit to do any act, matter or thing required to be done, either by any law of this state, by this title or by any order or rule of the commission, such public service company shall be liable to the persons or corporations affected thereby for all loss, damage or injury caused thereby or resulting therefrom, and in case of recovery if the court shall find that such act or omission was wilful, it may, in its discretion, fix a reasonable counsel or attorney's fee, which shall be taxed and collected as part of the costs in the case. An action to recover for such loss, damage or injury may be brought in any court of competent jurisdiction by any person or corporation.
RCW 80.04.440
Companies liable for damages.
Applied in 17 court decisions — leading case 128 Wash. 2d 656 - Tanner Electric Cooperative v. Puget Sound Power & Light (1996)
Most recently applied in Jeffrey K. Markoff v. Puget Sound Energy, Inc. (August 2019)
1961 c 14 s 80.04.440
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.