Justia Washington Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The Unit Owners Association of Centre Pointe Condominium (Centre Pointe) was formed in May 2003 by a declaration of condominium (Declaration) recorded in Whatcom County. A clubhouse and three residential buildings with 97 units of the Centre Pointe complex were built prior to 2011. In May 2011, Filmore LLP bought an unfinished portion of the Centre Pointe complex and all related development and special declarant rights. Filmore's property was part of the Centre Point complex and subject to its Declaration. Section 9.1.14 of the Declaration provided that there was "no restriction on the right of any Unit Owner to lease his or her Unit" other than the restrictions described in section 9.1.14. Nothing in section 9.1.14 limited the number of units that could be leased. In October 2011, owners of Centre Pointe units to which at least 67 percent (but less than 90 percent) of the votes in Centre Pointe were allocated approved a 12th amendment to the Declaration, requiring that no more than 30 percent of the total number of units could be leased. In October 2012, Filmore filed a complaint at the Whatcom County Superior Court alleging that the Declaration's Twelfth Amendment violated RCW 64.34.264(4) and section 17.3 of the Declaration because the 12th amendment was not passed with 90 percent of the eligible votes. Filmore requested that the 12th amendment be found void and unenforceable. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Filmore, and the Court of Appeals agreed. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower courts' judgments. View "Filmore, LLLP v. Unit Owners Ass'n of Centre Pointe Condo." on Justia Law

Julio Davila appealed the Court of Appeals' decision affirming his conviction for second degree murder. At issue was whether the State violated its disclosure obligation under "Brady v. Maryland," (373 U.S. 83 (1963)), when it failed to disclose the fact that a forensic scientist who analyzed certain DNA evidence used in Davila's case had been fired for incompetence. While the Supreme Court concluded that this evidence was both favorable to the defendant and suppressed by the State in violation of its Brady obligations, the Court also concluded that the evidence was not material to the outcome of Davila's trial, given the specific facts presented in this case. View "Washington v. Davila" on Justia Law

Klein Honda was a Honda dealership. From time to time, Honda (the manufacturer) offered a "dealer cash" incentive program for its dealerships whereby dealerships can earn a specific amount of extra money if they sold specific Honda models during specific times and comply with other terms and conditions. At issue in this case was whether Klein Honda's dealer cash earnings were taxable. "Klein Honda received additional, separate income beyond its ordinary retail sales. That constitutes an additional taxable business activity under the [B&O] catchall provision. Although dealer cash would not be taxable under one of the Washington State Department of Revenue's regulations if it represented a 'bona fide discount' on Klein Honda's wholesale purchase of vehicles, dealer cash is not a bona fide discount because Klein Honda does not purchase vehicles from Honda subject to a dealer cash discount. Dealer cash payments are not necessarily quantified or even knowable at the time that Klein Honda purchases vehicles from Honda. Thus, Klein Honda's dealer cash is taxable." View "Steven Klein, Inc. v. Dep't of Revenue" on Justia Law

Jose Martines was involved in a car accident. Pursuant to a warrant, a blood sample was extracted from Martines after an officer suspected he was driving while under the influence (DUI). Martines was ultimately charged with felony DUI. He sought to suppress the blood test results showing the presence of drugs on the ground that there was no probable cause to show he was under the influence of drugs, as opposed to alcohol. The trial court denied Martines's motion, and a jury convicted him. The Court of Appeals reversed Martines's conviction, holding that the blood test was an unlawful warrantless search. The court reasoned that drawing blood and testing blood constituted separate searches, each of which requires particular authorization, and that the warrant here authorized only a blood draw. The State appealed. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated Martines's conviction, holding that the warrant authorized the drawing and testing of Martines's blood for both alcohol and drugs based on probable cause to believe Martines had committed a DUI. View "Washington v. Martines" on Justia Law

This case involved two requests for public records that Glenda Nissen, a sheriff's detective, sent to Pierce County (County). Both requests asked for records related to Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist. The telephone number identified in these requests was connected to Lindquist's private cell phone. There was no dispute that Lindquist personally bought the phone, paid for its monthly service, and sometimes used it in the course of his job. The County reviewed call and text message logs and disclosed partially redacted copies to Nissen. Accompanied by an exemption log, the redactions concealed line items for calls and text messages that Lindquist self-described as personal in nature. The remaining unredacted portions related to calls and text messages that the County and Lindquist admitted might be work related. The County did not produce the contents of any text message, however, though copies of them existed on the service provider Verizon' s servers. Dissatisfied with the County's disclosures, Nissen sued the County, seeking an in camera review of Lindquist's text messages and the call and text message logs to determine if all of the information was a public record. Lindquist intervened and moved for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to enjoin further disclosure of records related to his cell phone. The County moved to dismiss Nissen's complaint under CR 12(b)(6), arguing the records at issue could not be public records as a matter of law, because they related to a personal cell phone rather than a county-issued one. The trial judge granted the County's CR 12(b)(6) motion, but the Court of Appeals reversed. Applying the Public Record Act's (PRA) definition of "public record," the Court of Appeals held that Lindquist's text messages were public records because he "prepared" them in his official capacity. The court further held that the factual record was not sufficiently developed on the issue of whether the call logs also qualify as "public record[s]," noting that the issue turned on whether Lindquist used or retained the logs in his capacity as prosecuting attorney. The Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals in part. Records that an agency employee prepares, owns, uses, or retains on a private cell phone within the scope of employment can be "public records" of the agency under RCW 42.56.010(3). Because the Court found it "impossible" to determine if any messages were in fact public records, on remand the parties were directed as follows. Lindquist must obtain a transcript of the content of all the text messages at issue, review them, and produce to the County any that are public records. View "Nissen v. Pierce County" on Justia Law

Edward Gorre was a firefighter employed by the city of Tacoma (City), who suffered from valley fever (coccidioidomycosis). Gorre's diagnosis was not disputed. At issue was whether valley fever was considered a "respiratory disease" or an "infectious disease" under RCW 51.32.185(1)(a) or (d) that shifts the burden of proving the disease's proximate cause from Gorre to the employer City. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the superior court's judgment in the City's favor. The Supreme Court concluded that "respiratory disease," as used in RCW 51.32.185(1 )(a), referred only to diseases that medical experts diagnose as respiratory diseases. The Court also concluded that the "infectious diseases" qualifying for RCW 51.32.185(1)(d)'s evidentiary presumption were limited to those diseases specifically enumerated in RCW 51.32.185( 4 ). Because medical experts in Gorre's case testified that valley fever was an infectious disease, not a respiratory one, and because it was not one of the infectious diseases enumerated in RCW 51.32.185(4), the presumption did not apply. View "Gorre v. City of Tacoma" on Justia Law

Several Indian tribes successfully challenged the imposition of state fuel taxes on tribal retailers. Since then, the State and various tribes signed agreements under which the tribes agreed to buy taxed fuel, and the State agreed to refund a portion of the fuel tax receipts to the tribes. An industry group unsuccessfully challenged the lawfulness of these agreements. The issue this case presented for the Washington Supreme Court's review reduced to whether those agreements violated article II, section 40 of the State Constitution. "Without passing judgment on whether the legislature successfully moved the legal incidence of the tax away from tribal retailers," the Supreme Court affirmed dismissal of the industry group's challenge. View "Auto. United Trades Org. v. Washington" on Justia Law

Petitioner Jerry Herron was charged with first degree rape while armed with a deadly weapon. Roughly a week and a half before trial, the trial court held an initial readiness hearing where it informed the parties that it typically used a jury questionnaire in sexual assault cases to discover sensitive information that might require questioning jurors individually. The court explained that in light of recent appellate court decisions, the practice of questioning jurors in chambers conflicted with Herron's public trial right. Thus, the court stated that "if there is any objection, I can't -- follow that procedure--." The prosecuting attorney advised that Herron would need to affirmatively waive his right to a public trial on the record in order to question jurors in chambers. Alternatively, the prosecuting attorney suggested that the court could question individual jurors in a public setting with the other jurors waiting in a separate room. Defense counsel responded that he would not object and that "if we're looking for an affirmative waiver of a public examination of these individual jurors, Mr. Herron and I are present, we're certainly willing to waive that. ... I think that's going to bear far more fruit than just simply a voir dire situation." At this point, the court inquired whether Herron understood the conversation and Herron replied that he did, expressly agreeing with the idea of conducting individual voir dire in the privacy of the judge's chambers. A jury was eventually empaneled, and Herron was found guilty of first degree rape while armed with a deadly weapon. The Court of Appeals affirmed Herron's conviction. Herron appealed, arguing the public's right to an open proceeding was violated. Finding that the Court of Appeals was correct in its ruling that Herron waived his public trial right and that he lacked standing to assert the rights of the general public, the Washington Supreme Court affirmed. View "Washington v. Herron" on Justia Law

Appellant Jonathan Gentry was convicted by jury of aggravated first degree murder of a 12-year-old girl in 1991, for which he was sentenced to death. His conviction was affirmed in 1995, and denied postconviction relief in 1999 and 2014. In 2011, Gentry moved for postconviction DNA testing, which was granted. After the DNA report on a bloodstained shoelace (that was admitted into evidence at trial) came back matching the victim's blood profile, the State moved to end further testing. In granting the State's motion, the trial court concluded that Gentry could not meet the substantive standard of RCW 10.73.170, which required a convicted person to show the likelihood that DNA evidence would demonstrate innocence on a more probable than not basis. The court concluded that the statute did not impose a presumption that further DNA testing will be favorable and exculpatory and held that, even with such a presumption, Gentry could not show probable innocence in light of the new inculpatory DNA test on the shoelace. Gentry appealed that judgment directly to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court affirmed, finding that the trial judge acted within her discretion in determining that Gentry could not demonstrate probable innocence in light of the result of the DNA test on the shoelace, even assuming the remaining DNA evidence would have been favorable to him. View "Washington v. Gentry" on Justia Law

In 2013, SeaTac city voters approved a local initiative to establish the minimum wage for hospitality and transportation workers at $15-per-hour. Opponents of "Proposition 1" challenged the validity under state and federal law. The trial court largely rejected the challenges, with two exceptions: (1) under state law, Proposition 1 could not be enforced at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport; and (2) federal labor law preempted a provision of Proposition 1 protecting workers from certain types of retaliation. The Washington Supreme Court reversed both of these rulings, holding that Proposition 1 could be enforced at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport because there was no indication that it would interfere with airport operations. The Court also held that federal labor law did not preempt the provision protecting workers from retaliation. The Court otherwise affirmed the trial court and upheld Proposition 1 in its entirety. View "Filo Foods, LLC v. City of SeaTac" on Justia Law