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WASHINGTON RESEARCH
Washington Case Law Search: Search Washington State Case Law, Court of Appeals Opinions, and Supreme Court Decisions in Plain English
Ask a Washington question the way you would ask a colleague and get back opinions from the Supreme Court and all three Court of Appeals divisions, with the citation you actually file and the holding in plain language.
Last updated July 2026 · US firms · Research tool, not legal advice
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The controlling statute is surfaced alongside the case law so you read the code and the precedents together.
Plain-English answer
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- Question
- Short answer
- Authorities
Casesearch shows you the sources. Always read the full opinion and verify citations before you rely on them.
The short answer
Washington case law search means finding the opinions of the Washington Supreme Court and the three divisions of the Washington Court of Appeals that control your issue. Washington is unusual: the three divisions are co-equal, and a published opinion from one division does not bind the others. The Supreme Court settled that in In re Personal Restraint of Arnold, 190 Wn.2d 136, 410 P.3d 1133 (2018), rejecting horizontal stare decisis among the divisions and holding that a division owes an out-of-division opinion respectful consideration rather than obedience. So the first question in Washington research is not just what the Court of Appeals held, it is which division held it and which division your appeal sits in.
3
co-equal Court of Appeals divisions, and none of them binds the others
25
Court of Appeals judges under RCW 2.06.020: 12 in Seattle, 8 in Tacoma, 5 in Spokane
Mar 1, 2013
unpublished opinions filed on or after this date are citable as nonbinding authority
Wn.3d
the Supreme Court series that opened in 2023 after Wn.2d closed at volume 200
Side by side
The Washington court structure and what actually binds your court
Washington splits its intermediate appellate court into three geographic divisions that are equals rather than a hierarchy, so a published Court of Appeals opinion can be controlling in Seattle and merely persuasive in Spokane.
| Court | What it decides | How it is cited | Precedential weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Washington Supreme Court | Discretionary review, constitutional questions, division conflicts | Wn.3d since 2023, Wn.2d before that, parallel P.3d | Binding on every court in Washington |
| Court of Appeals, Division One (Seattle) | Appeals from King, Snohomish, and the north Puget Sound counties | Wn. App. 2d, parallel P.3d | Binding in Division One, persuasive elsewhere |
| Court of Appeals, Division Two (Tacoma) | Appeals from Pierce and the southwest Washington counties | Wn. App. 2d, parallel P.3d | Binding in Division Two, persuasive elsewhere |
| Court of Appeals, Division Three (Spokane) | Appeals from the eastern Washington counties | Wn. App. 2d, parallel P.3d | Binding in Division Three, persuasive elsewhere |
| Court of Appeals (unpublished) | The same appeals, resolved without a precedential opinion | Slip or docket cite, marked unpublished | No precedential value, citable as nonbinding authority if filed on or after March 1, 2013 |
| Superior, district, and municipal courts | Trials, limited civil and misdemeanor matters, city ordinances | Not published as precedent | No precedential value |
| Ninth Circuit, W.D. Wash. and E.D. Wash. | Federal questions and diversity cases applying Washington law | F.4th, F. Supp. 3d | Persuasive only in state court on questions of Washington law |
Casesearch is a research accelerator, not legal advice. Confirm the current citation, division, and publication status before you file.
How do I search Washington case law?
Describe the issue as a full question rather than a string of keywords, then read the results with one extra filter that most states do not require: which division decided it. Washington is one of the few states where a published intermediate appellate opinion can be binding in part of the state and merely persuasive in the rest, so an answer that names the right case but the wrong division has not finished the job.
After that, the usual two checks apply. Separate published opinions from unpublished ones, because they carry different weight and different citation obligations. Then confirm the Supreme Court has not taken the issue up or resolved a division split since the opinion issued, which is the single most common way a Washington authority goes stale.
Ask in a full sentence
Include the statute or RCW chapter, the parties, and the procedural posture so the search has real facts to match.
Identify the division
A Division One opinion controls a King County appeal and only persuades a Spokane County one.
Check published versus unpublished
Unpublished Court of Appeals opinions have no precedential value under RCW 2.06.040.
Look for a division split
Conflicting divisions is the classic ground for discretionary review under RAP 13.4(b).
Are Washington Court of Appeals decisions binding on other divisions?
No. The three divisions of the Washington Court of Appeals are co-equal, and a published opinion from one does not bind another. Division Three had treated out-of-division opinions as controlling under what it called horizontal stare decisis, and in In re Personal Restraint of Arnold, 190 Wn.2d 136, 410 P.3d 1133 (2018), the Washington Supreme Court rejected that rule. The Court reasoned that binding deference among the divisions conflicts with the statutes and rules that define the Court of Appeals, conflicts with the Court's own prior decisions, and would suppress the adversarial development of the law. A division gives an out-of-division opinion respectful consideration and may follow it, but it is free to disagree.
The practical consequences are real. A published Division One opinion is controlling authority in a King County superior court and persuasive authority in a Yakima County one. Two divisions can hold opposite things on the same statute for years, and until the Supreme Court steps in, both are good law in their own territory. When you brief an issue, you are looking first for a Supreme Court answer, then for a published opinion of your own division, and only then for out-of-division authority, which you cite for its reasoning rather than for its command.
A genuine division split is also an argument, not just a problem. Under RAP 13.4(b), one of the grounds for the Supreme Court to accept review is that a Court of Appeals decision conflicts with a decision of another division. If your research turns up a real conflict, that is a fact worth putting in front of the trial court and preserving for appeal.
Division One sits in Seattle
King, Snohomish, and the north Puget Sound counties, with 12 judges under RCW 2.06.020.
Division Two sits in Tacoma
Pierce County and southwest Washington, with 8 judges.
Division Three sits in Spokane
Eastern Washington, with 5 judges.
Only the Supreme Court binds all three
A Wn.3d or Wn.2d holding controls statewide regardless of which division your case is in.
Can you cite an unpublished opinion in Washington?
Yes, within limits, and the date matters. Under GR 14.1(a), an unpublished opinion of the Court of Appeals filed on or after March 1, 2013 may be cited as nonbinding authority if the citing party identifies it as unpublished, and the court may give it whatever persuasive value it thinks appropriate. Unpublished opinions filed before that date are not citable under the rule. Separately, RCW 2.06.040 provides that opinions the Court of Appeals does not publish have no precedential value, so nothing you find in an unpublished opinion is ever controlling.
Treat the two ideas as distinct, because researchers conflate them constantly. Citable is not the same as binding. A post-2013 unpublished Washington opinion can go in your brief, properly labeled, as an illustration of how a panel applied a rule to similar facts. It cannot carry the weight of your argument, and a court is free to ignore it. If your only support for a proposition is unpublished, that is a signal to keep researching, not a signal to file. Our guide on when you can cite an unpublished opinion covers how other jurisdictions handle the same question.
How do I cite a Washington case?
Washington cites to its own official reports first, with a parallel Pacific Reporter cite, and it uses in-state abbreviations that differ from the Bluebook. The Office of the Reporter of Decisions style sheet, published as Appendix 1 to GR 14, uses Wn.2d and Wn. App. rather than the Bluebook forms Wash. 2d and Wash. App. Briefs filed in Washington courts follow the state style sheet; briefs filed elsewhere follow the Bluebook.
The series have moved recently, which trips up anyone working from memory. Washington official reports are capped at 200 volumes by convention. Washington Reports 2d ran from October 1939 until it hit volume 200, and Washington Reports 3d (Wn.3d) opened in 2023 with the Supreme Court's decision in Washington Food Industry Association v. City of Seattle. On the appellate side, the first series of Washington Appellate Reports closed at volume 200 in 2017 and Wn. App. 2d began in October 2017. Washington has not adopted a public domain or medium neutral citation format, so a case not yet in the official reports is cited by slip opinion, docket number, and filing date. If the parts of a citation are unfamiliar, our breakdown of how to read a legal citation walks through reporters, pinpoints, and parentheticals.
Supreme Court
Wn.3d for opinions in the current series, Wn.2d for the 1939 to 2023 run, parallel P.3d.
Court of Appeals
Wn. App. 2d since October 2017, Wn. App. before that, parallel P.3d.
In-state abbreviations
Use Wn.2d and Wn. App. under the GR 14 style sheet, not Wash. 2d and Wash. App.
No neutral citation
Cite an unreported case by slip opinion, docket number, and date.
Where can I find Washington case law online?
The official opinions cost nothing. The Washington Courts website posts Supreme Court and Court of Appeals opinions the day they are filed, marks each Court of Appeals opinion published or unpublished, and keeps a searchable archive. Google Scholar and CourtListener carry the same opinions with better full text search. What none of them give you is a citator, a plain-language holding, or any warning that the opinion you found comes from a division that does not bind your court.
That last gap is why Washington research goes wrong. A free full text search will happily hand a Spokane practitioner a Division One opinion with no indication that it is persuasive rather than controlling. The paid enterprise tools solve it with editorial headnotes and the KeyCite and Shepard's citators, at a per seat cost that a two-lawyer firm in Walla Walla struggles to justify. A self-serve research tool that returns the cited holding, names the deciding court, and flags subsequent treatment covers the everyday work at a fraction of that. We lay out the whole category in the legal research software guide, and the price ranges in the legal research software pricing breakdown.
Frequently asked
Questions buyers ask about washington case law search
How do I search Washington case law?
Describe your issue as a full question and search opinions of the Washington Supreme Court and the three Court of Appeals divisions. Because the divisions do not bind each other, identify which division decided each opinion and which division governs your case, then confirm the opinion is published and has not been overtaken by a later Supreme Court decision.
Are Washington Court of Appeals decisions binding on other divisions?
No. In In re Personal Restraint of Arnold, 190 Wn.2d 136 (2018), the Washington Supreme Court rejected horizontal stare decisis among the three co-equal divisions. A published opinion binds the division that issued it and the superior courts within that division, and gives other divisions respectful consideration only. A genuine conflict between divisions is a ground for Supreme Court review under RAP 13.4(b).
Can you cite an unpublished opinion in Washington?
Yes, if it was filed on or after March 1, 2013. Under GR 14.1(a) an unpublished Court of Appeals opinion from that date forward may be cited as nonbinding authority when the citing party identifies it as unpublished, and the court gives it whatever persuasive value it chooses. Under RCW 2.06.040 unpublished opinions have no precedential value and never control.
How do I cite a Washington case?
Cite the official Washington reports with a parallel Pacific Reporter cite, using the GR 14 style sheet abbreviations Wn.3d, Wn.2d, and Wn. App. 2d rather than the Bluebook forms. Washington Reports 3d opened in 2023 and Washington Appellate Reports 2d in October 2017. Washington has no public domain citation, so unreported cases are cited by docket number and date.
How many judges are on the Washington Court of Appeals?
Twenty five, allocated by RCW 2.06.020 across three divisions: 12 judges in Division One at Seattle, 8 in Division Two at Tacoma, and 5 in Division Three at Spokane. They sit in panels, and each division decides appeals from the superior courts in its own geographic area.
What is the highest court in Washington?
The Washington Supreme Court, made up of nine justices elected statewide to six year terms. Its decisions bind every court in the state, including all three Court of Appeals divisions, and it is the only Washington court that can resolve a conflict between two divisions. Its opinions appear in Wn.3d with a parallel P.3d cite.
Keep reading
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The mirror image: one statewide appellate court that binds everywhere.
Massachusetts case law search
Also one statewide Appeals Court, with a stricter unpublished decision rule.
Illinois case law search
Five appellate districts and a public domain citation format.
What decisions are binding in my state
How binding authority works court by court, state by state.
Can you cite an unpublished opinion
The citation rules for unpublished decisions, state by state and federally.
How to read a legal citation
Reporters, pinpoints, parentheticals, and subsequent history.
Check if a case is still good law
The treatment check that catches reversals and superseding statutes.
Legal research software
The four kinds of research tool and how to choose between them.
Casesearch is a legal research tool, not legal advice. Always read the full opinion and verify citations before relying on them.
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Search Washington case law in plain English
Ask your Washington question and read the controlling opinions, which division decided them, and the treatment signal for yourself. A research tool, not legal advice.