Washington Court of Appeals, Division III

The Washington Court of Appeals, Division III is one of three divisions of the state's intermediate appellate court. It sits in Spokane and hears cases arising from the superior courts of eastern Washington. The Legislature created the Court of Appeals in 1969 to absorb the volume of appeals that once traveled straight to the Washington Supreme Court. Division Three covers the eastern district, a band of counties running from the Idaho border toward the Cascade crest. Judges here are elected to six year terms from within the district. They decide cases in panels of three.

Above this court sits the Washington Supreme Court. Below it sit the superior courts, the trial courts of general jurisdiction that handle felonies, large civil disputes, dissolutions, probate, and appeals brought up from courts of limited jurisdiction. When a party loses in superior court and wants review, the case usually reaches the Court of Appeals first. The Supreme Court can then review the Court of Appeals, but that review is discretionary in most instances. A litigant does not receive a second appeal as a matter of right. That single fact shapes why the intermediate court decides most disputes for good.

The three divisions form one Court of Appeals, not three separate courts. They share the same rules, the Rules of Appellate Procedure, and a decision from any division carries statewide weight as precedent until another panel or the Supreme Court disagrees. Still, each division runs its own docket and its own clerk's office. A case filed in Division Three stays in Division Three from the notice of appeal through the mandate, unless a transfer or consolidation moves it. Commissioners, who are not the elected judges, handle many motions, screen filings, and can decide some matters subject to a motion to modify heard by a panel.

Numbers give the court its shape. RCW 2.06.020 fixes the count of judges in each division, and Division Three has five. A chief judge, chosen from among them, handles assignments and administrative duties. Panels rotate, so counsel rarely knows the exact three judge composition until the case is set for consideration. The Court of Appeals publishes some opinions and marks others as unpublished. A published opinion binds later panels and the superior courts of the division until the Supreme Court, or the same court sitting differently, changes the rule.

Discretionary review at the top explains why so much ends here. Under RAP 13.4, a party who loses in the Court of Appeals may petition the Supreme Court, but the justices grant review only for limited reasons: a conflict with a Supreme Court decision, a conflict among Court of Appeals decisions, a significant constitutional question, or an issue of substantial public interest. Most petitions do not meet that bar. For the ordinary appellant, the panel's decision is the last word on the merits.

Direct review by the Supreme Court is possible in a narrow set of cases, which is the other reason the Court of Appeals does not see every appeal. Under RAP 4.2, the Supreme Court may take a case straight from superior court when it involves a question of broad public import that requires a prompt and final decision, among other grounds. Actions against state officers and conflicts between a statute and the constitution have moved on that track. Those cases are the exception. The everyday path runs through the Court of Appeals.

The work that flows into the court comes almost entirely from the superior courts of the eastern counties. A defendant convicted of a felony appeals here. A parent who loses custody, a landlord who loses an unlawful detainer, a company hit with a large judgment, all of them come to the same building. The Court of Appeals also hears certain appeals that began in district or municipal court, traveled to superior court under the RALJ rules, and then moved up on a second review. Those cases arrive filtered, and the panel reviews the superior court's appellate ruling rather than the original trial.

Geography sets the reach of Division Three. The district takes in Spokane, the Palouse, the Columbia Basin, and the counties along the Canadian and Idaho lines. RCW 2.06.022 assigns counties to each division. A lawyer in Walla Walla, Yakima, or Colville who needs appellate review of a superior court judgment files with this court, not with Division One in Seattle or Division Two in Tacoma. The distance across eastern Washington means the court sets oral argument with travel in mind, and it sometimes hears argument at law schools or in courthouses outside Spokane.

Self represented litigants appear in this court as they do in every appellate court, and the clerk's office keeps procedures accessible without giving legal advice. The Court of Appeals holds them to the same rules that govern lawyers, though panels read pro se briefs with some patience for form. Deadlines, the record, and the requirement to assign error and support argument apply to everyone. A missed filing date can end an appeal before any judge reads the merits, which is why the calendar matters as much as the argument.

Two functions run through everything the panel does. The first is error correction, making sure the trial judge applied the right law and gave the parties a fair process. The second is law development, announcing rules that guide trial courts and litigants across the district. The Supreme Court holds the final say on statewide law, yet the Court of Appeals writes the opinions that most eastern Washington lawyers actually cite. When a published decision from Division Three interprets a statute, superior courts follow it until a higher authority speaks.

Knowing where the court sits and what it reviews sets up the harder question of what it may take on. Jurisdiction, the line between an appeal you can bring by right and one that needs the court's permission, decides which disputes get a full hearing and which never leave the starting gate.

Jurisdiction is the authority to decide, and the Court of Appeals draws its authority from statute and from the Rules of Appellate Procedure. Two categories matter most. Some decisions may be appealed as a matter of right, meaning the court must take the case if the appellant follows the rules. Others reach the court only by permission, called discretionary review, which the panel or a commissioner grants under limited standards. Knowing which category a ruling falls into decides whether a client has a guaranteed hearing or a request that can be denied at the threshold.

Appeal as of right is governed by RAP 2.2. The core example is a final judgment that ends the case in superior court, the decision that resolves all claims against all parties. The rule also lists other appealable decisions: an order deciding a petition to modify a decree, an order of contempt, a judgment on a jury verdict, certain probate and guardianship orders, and a decision terminating parental rights. When a ruling fits the list, the Court of Appeals accepts the appeal, and the fight moves to the merits rather than to whether the door is open at all.

Discretionary review under RAP 2.3 covers the rest, the orders that are not final or not on the statutory list. A party might want immediate review of a pretrial ruling that decides a controlling issue, or an order that would waste a trial if it stands. The standards are demanding. The Court of Appeals may accept discretionary review when the superior court committed obvious error that would render further proceedings useless, when it committed probable error that substantially alters the status quo or limits a party's freedom to act, or when it departed so far from the usual course of proceedings that appellate oversight is warranted. Most interlocutory requests fail these tests, and the parties finish trial before any appeal.

Criminal appeals fill a large part of the docket. A defendant convicted of a felony in superior court has a right to appeal under the constitution and the rules, and the Court of Appeals reviews the conviction and the sentence. Common issues include the sufficiency of the evidence, the admission of contested testimony, jury instructions, prosecutorial conduct in closing argument, and the calculation of the offender score under the Sentencing Reform Act. A criminal appellant may also file a statement of additional grounds under RAP 10.10, raising points the lawyer did not brief. The Court of Appeals reads that statement and addresses issues it can understand from the record.

Personal restraint petitions travel a different route. A prisoner who wants to challenge a conviction or sentence outside the direct appeal files a petition that the Court of Appeals treats as an original action, not an appeal from a judgment. These petitions raise claims like ineffective assistance of counsel, newly discovered evidence, or a sentence that exceeds statutory authority. The petitioner must clear procedural bars, including the time limit set by RCW 10.73.090, and must show actual prejudice or a fundamental defect. The court can dismiss a petition, order a reference hearing in superior court, or grant relief.

Civil matters span the full range of superior court work. Family law appeals bring parenting plans, spousal maintenance, property division, and relocation disputes. Dependency and termination cases, where the state seeks to sever a parent's rights, move quickly because a child's placement waits on the outcome. The Court of Appeals also hears contract and tort judgments, employment claims, insurance coverage fights, real property and boundary disputes, and appeals from administrative decisions that reached superior court under the Administrative Procedure Act. Land use cases arrive under the Land Use Petition Act, RCW 36.70C, after a superior court reviews a local permitting decision.

A second review from courts of limited jurisdiction reaches here in a narrow way. A traffic or misdemeanor case decided in district or municipal court goes first to superior court under the RALJ rules. If a party wants to go further, the Court of Appeals grants discretionary review under RAP 2.3(d), and only when the case raises a significant question of law, conflicts with precedent, or involves an issue of public interest. That extra filter keeps most minor cases from ever reaching the panel, so the docket leans toward felony appeals and substantial civil judgments.

Some decisions cannot be appealed at all, or can be reviewed only after the case ends. An order that merely denies summary judgment usually is not appealable, because a trial can still resolve the dispute. A discovery ruling rarely qualifies for immediate review. Parties who mistake a nonappealable order for a final one lose time and sometimes lose the appeal, because the Court of Appeals will dismiss a premature filing or hold it while the superior court finishes. Reading RAP 2.2 and RAP 2.3 together, and matching the order to the right category, is the first task in any appellate plan.

Money does not decide access the way it does at the trial level. Superior courts hear civil cases above a set amount while district courts handle smaller claims, but once a superior court enters a final judgment, the size of the award does not control the right to appeal. A small judgment and a large one both reach the Court of Appeals through the same door. What controls is the nature of the order and the deadline, and the deadline is short.

Requests for attorney fees ride along with many appeals. A statute, a contract, or a rule may allow the winner to recover fees for the appellate work, and the party must ask in the briefing under RAP 18.1 and support the request with argument. The Court of Appeals decides entitlement, then a commissioner or the clerk fixes the amount. Fee exposure changes how parties weigh an appeal, because a losing appellant in a contract case may owe the other side's appellate costs on top of the judgment.

Once a client has a reviewable decision and a timely notice, the appeal becomes a sequence of fixed steps. The mechanics, how the record is built, how briefs are written, how panels hear argument, and what the court may do with a verdict, are governed by rules that reward preparation and punish delay.

An appeal to the Court of Appeals begins with a notice, and the notice has a clock. Under RAP 5.2, a party must file the notice of appeal within thirty days after the trial court enters the decision being challenged. The deadline is firm. Miss it, and the right to appeal is usually gone, though a few post trial motions can extend the time if they are filed on schedule. The notice goes to the superior court clerk, who forwards it, and the case opens in the Court of Appeals with a docket number and a set of deadlines that follow one another in order.

The record is what the panel reads, and building it is the appellant's job. RAP 9 divides the record into two parts. Clerk's papers hold the written filings from superior court, the pleadings, motions, orders, and the judgment. The report of proceedings holds the transcript of what was said in court, prepared by the court reporter from the hearings that matter to the issues on appeal. An appellant who fails to designate a needed transcript may lose an argument, because the Court of Appeals will not assume facts that the record does not show. If the transcript does not contain the objection, the panel may treat the issue as unpreserved.

Briefs carry the argument. RAP 10.3 sets what each brief must contain: assignments of error, a statement of the case with citations to the record, argument with authority, and a short conclusion. The appellant files the opening brief, the respondent answers, and the appellant may reply. RAP 10.4 limits length, and the Court of Appeals enforces the limits. A brief that assigns error without argument, or cites no authority, gives the panel a reason to pass the point by. Good briefing ties each claimed error to the standard of review that governs it, because the standard often decides the case before oral argument begins.

Panels and argument follow the briefing. Three judges review each appeal, and the Court of Appeals decides many cases on the briefs alone when argument would add little. When the court sets oral argument under RAP 11, each side gets a set time, usually short, to answer the judges' questions rather than to read a speech. The panel has read the briefs and the key parts of the record before counsel stands. A lawyer who knows the record cold, and who can concede the weak points, does better than one who repeats the brief. After argument, the judges confer and one is assigned to write.

Standards of review control how much deference the panel gives the trial court, and they vary by the kind of ruling. A pure question of law, like the meaning of a statute, gets de novo review, meaning the Court of Appeals decides the issue fresh without deferring to the superior court. A discretionary decision, like an evidentiary ruling or a sanction, gets review for abuse of discretion, and the court reverses only when the decision rests on untenable grounds. Findings of fact after a bench trial hold if substantial evidence supports them. The choice of standard often decides the appeal, because a factual finding backed by evidence will stand even if the panel might have weighed things differently.

What the court can do with a judgment is set by RAP 12.2. The Court of Appeals may affirm, reverse, or modify the decision under review, and it may remand with instructions for further proceedings. A reversal can send a case back for a new trial or for resentencing, and sometimes for entry of a corrected judgment without more proceedings. The panel can also affirm on any ground the record supports, even one the trial judge did not rely on. When the decision issues, the losing party has a window to seek reconsideration under RAP 12.4 and then to petition the Supreme Court under RAP 13.4.

What the court cannot do matters just as much. The Court of Appeals does not retry the case. It does not hear new witnesses, take new exhibits, or find facts on its own. When a jury has weighed conflicting testimony and returned a verdict, the panel will not substitute its own view of who was more believable, because credibility belongs to the trier of fact. The court asks whether the evidence, seen in the light most favorable to the verdict, could support the result, not whether the judges would have reached it. An appellant who wants the panel to reweigh the evidence has misread the court's role.

Harmless error runs through every merits decision. Even when the panel agrees the trial court erred, the Court of Appeals will not reverse unless the error affected the outcome. A wrongly admitted document that made no difference to a strong case leaves the judgment intact. In criminal appeals, a constitutional error requires reversal unless the state proves it harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, while a nonconstitutional error uses a lower measure. This is why a winning issue on appeal needs both a mistake and a showing that the mistake mattered.

After the opinion and any reconsideration, the Court of Appeals issues a mandate under RAP 12.5, the document that ends the court's authority over the case and returns it to superior court. Until the mandate issues, the appellate court keeps control. Costs are settled, the trial court regains the file, and the parties carry out whatever the decision requires. For most litigants in eastern Washington, that mandate closes the matter, because the Supreme Court will decline to hear it and the panel's opinion becomes the final resolution of the dispute.

The mandate closes the file for most parties, yet the opinion can outlast the dispute. Every case the Court of Appeals resolves ends in one of two forms. A published opinion joins the body of Washington law and binds superior courts across the state. An unpublished opinion decides the case in front of the panel and carries no precedential force, though GR 14.1 lets a lawyer cite one filed after March 1, 2013, for whatever persuasive value it holds. The three judges choose the form. A case that applies settled rules to ordinary facts usually draws an unpublished disposition, while a question that clarifies a statute or splits from earlier authority tends toward publication.

Publication matters to people who were never part of the case. A published ruling from the Court of Appeals governs later disputes until the Supreme Court or the Legislature changes it. Because Division III sits in eastern Washington, its published work reaches practice from Spokane to the Columbia Basin, and its reasoning travels statewide through the official reporter. That reach explains why the panel writes with care and why the quality of briefing affects more than a single client. It also explains why lawyers read new opinions from the Court of Appeals the week they issue.

The first response to a loss is a motion for reconsideration under RAP 12.4. A party has 20 days from the filing of the opinion to ask the same panel to look again. The motion is narrow by design. It points to a fact the court overlooked or a controlling authority the opinion misread, and it does not simply restate the losing brief. The Court of Appeals grants reconsideration rarely, and a motion that recycles old arguments burns time better spent on the deadline that follows. A skilled appellate lawyer treats reconsideration as a scalpel for a genuine oversight, aimed at the one place where the opinion went off the record or misread a case.

The Court of Appeals does not sit as one large bench to rehear its own work. Division III decides through panels of three judges, and there is no en banc procedure like the one used in the federal circuits. When two panels within the division read a statute differently, the tension is left for the Supreme Court to settle through review. That structure makes reconsideration and the petition for review the only real tools after an opinion, which is why the two deadlines deserve close attention the day the decision arrives.

Review by the Washington Supreme Court is discretionary. RAP 13.4 gives a party 30 days from the Court of Appeals decision, or from an order denying reconsideration, to file a petition for review. The petition has to fit one of the grounds in RAP 13.4(b). Those grounds are a conflict with a Supreme Court decision, a conflict among published The judges decisions, a significant question under the state or federal constitution, or an issue of substantial public interest. The Supreme Court grants review sparingly, so the petition must frame the case as one that reaches past the parties. A brief that only complains about the outcome, without showing a conflict or a broad question, seldom persuades the higher court to take it.

If the Supreme Court declines, the panel's opinion becomes the final word for that dispute in the state system. A litigant who believes a federal right was decided wrongly has one further path, and it is steep. Under 28 U.S.C. 1257, the United States Supreme Court may review a final judgment of a state's highest court on a question of federal law by writ of certiorari, filed within 90 days. That route runs through the Washington Supreme Court first, since certiorari reviews the state's highest court rather than the panel directly, and the federal court accepts only a small set of cases each term. Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004), shows the path in action; a sentencing question that began in Washington's courts reshaped criminal law nationwide. Cases like that are rare.

Practically, the paths onward narrow fast. Most cases end at this court because the Supreme Court denies review and no federal question exists. Counsel who understands this plans backward from it. A clean record and a set of preserved issues in the superior court give the appellate brief its force, and the same discipline positions a client for a petition for review if the panel rules against them. Waiting until after the opinion to think about the Supreme Court usually comes too late to help.

Precedent from the panel also guides settlement in later disputes. When the court publishes a reading of a statute, lawyers on both sides of the next case measure their positions against it. A holding on insurance coverage or on the elements of a crime tells parties what a trial court will likely do, which pushes many disputes toward resolution before trial. That quiet influence, felt in negotiations that never reach a courtroom, is part of what an appellate decision accomplishes. It is also why practitioners in the region track the division's published output so closely.

Because these opinions carry weight, choosing the right lawyer to argue them is its own decision, addressed in the next section. This directory lists Washington appellate firms and shows any plan-tier ordering openly, so a reader can tell paid placement from merit and judge counsel on their actual work before the appellate bench. Ranking that a firm has paid for is labeled as such. A client can see how a listing was ordered and weigh it accordingly.

An appeal in the Court of Appeals is different work from a trial, and the lawyer who tried the case is not always the best choice to argue it. Washington keeps a single bar. Any active member of the Washington State Bar Association may appear before the Court of Appeals, so there is no separate appellate license to check. A lawyer admitted in another state can take part in a Washington appeal only by association with local counsel and permission under APR 8, the pro hac vice rule. For a client in Spokane or Yakima, that usually means resident counsel who knows Division III and its clerk's office will handle the filing.

What separates real appellate experience from a trial practice is the kind of skill the Court of Appeals rewards. Appeals turn on the written record and the brief. New testimony has no place. A lawyer who works often before the Court of Appeals reads a transcript for preserved error, frames issues around the standard of review, and writes an argument that a busy panel can follow on one pass. Ask a prospective lawyer how many appeals they have briefed in Division III, whether they have argued orally before the Court of Appeals, and which of their cases produced a published opinion. Those answers tell you more than a general litigation resume.

Deadlines are unforgiving here. The notice of appeal is due within 30 days under RAP 5.2, and a lawyer who handles appeals treats that date as fixed. During intake, listen for how the lawyer talks about building the record: designating the clerk's papers and ordering the report of proceedings. A candidate who cannot explain those steps has probably not spent much time in the judges. One who describes them plainly, and ties them to your issues, likely has.

Oral argument before the panel is short and pointed. The panel may decide a case on the briefs alone, and when it sets argument, each side typically gets a limited block of time to answer the judges' questions. A lawyer who has argued in Division III knows that the panel has already read the briefs and wants help with the hard parts, not a recital. When you interview counsel, ask how they prepare for questions from the bench and how they decide which points to concede. Comfort with that setting is a fair sign of appellate seasoning.

Fee structures vary by case type. Many appellate lawyers bill by the hour, because the work is hard to price before the record is read and the issues are known. Some offer a flat fee for a defined scope, a single brief or an oral argument, once they have reviewed the file. Contingent fees appear in civil appeals with a money judgment at stake, though they are less common than in trial work. Beyond the lawyer's time, budget for the cost of the record. The court reporter charges for the transcript, and the superior court clerk charges for preparing clerk's papers, and those costs land before this court ever reads a word. If a statute or contract allows fees, RAP 18.1 lets the prevailing party ask for attorney fees on appeal, which a lawyer should raise early so the request is made properly in the brief.

Before you hire, confirm that the lawyer is who they claim to be. Where a firm has earned verification, its dated, editor-reviewed checks each appear with a name, a short description, a status, and the date each was last reviewed. The checks cover bar standing with the Washington State Bar Association and admission status, so you can see whether a lawyer is active and eligible to appear before the court. A last-checked date matters because bar status can change; a verification from two years ago is not the same as one reviewed this month. Read the status line, then read the date next to it.

Recall where this court sits and how it decides. Division III of the appellate bench covers eastern Washington from its seat in Spokane, and it hears each case through a panel of three judges rather than a single trial judge. That structure shapes the lawyer you want. The person arguing your case has to write for three readers who did not see the witnesses and who care about the record and the law. A lawyer who understands the geography and the rules of the judges will set expectations you can plan around. Use the verification entries in this directory to confirm the credentials, then use a writing sample to judge the craft.

Match the lawyer to the case. A criminal appeal from a Yakima County conviction and a commercial dispute out of Spokane call on different knowledge, even though both land in the same The panel. Ask whether the lawyer has handled your subject before the court, and ask to read a brief they wrote. A well-organized brief, with a clean statement of the issues and honest treatment of adverse authority, tells you how they will represent you.

One more practical point. Because most cases end at this court, the brief you pay for is often the last full argument your case will get. That raises the stakes on the first choice of counsel and on the first draft of the issues. Take time at the outset, check the bar standing and the last-checked date, read the writing, and ask direct questions about experience before the court. The client who does that homework enters the appeal with a lawyer suited to the record and the panel that will decide it.