{"id":10383,"date":"2024-04-12T15:30:49","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T22:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pacificalawgroup.com\/?p=10383"},"modified":"2024-05-03T15:33:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T22:33:52","slug":"wa-supreme-court-pra-claims-guidance-statute-of-limitations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pacificalawgroup.com\/wa-supreme-court-pra-claims-guidance-statute-of-limitations\/","title":{"rendered":"WA Supreme Court Provides Guidance on Statute of Limitations for Public Records Act Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday, April 11, 2024, the Washington Supreme Court issued an important decision regarding the Washington Public Records Act, chapter <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.leg.wa.gov\/rcw\/default.aspx?cite=42.56\">42.56 RCW<\/a> (\u201cPRA\u201d), which provides helpful guidance on when the statute of limitations period for a PRA claim begins.<\/p>\n<p>The statute of limitations to file a claim under the PRA is one year (<a href=\"https:\/\/app.leg.wa.gov\/rcw\/default.aspx?cite=42.56.550\">RCW 42.56.550(6)<\/a>). In its decision in <em>Cousins v. State of Washington<\/em>, Case No. 101769-3 (2024), the Washington Supreme Court held that an agency\u2019s letter closing a request for records under the PRA \u201cwill generally trigger the PRA\u2019s statute of limitations\u201d but there are certain requirements that agencies must follow.<\/p>\n<p>The Court determined that to trigger the limitations period, \u201ca closing letter must be <em>sufficient<\/em>\u201d and \u201can agency\u2019s use of the word \u2018closed,\u2019 without more, is not determinative.\u201d The Court opined that a closing letter to a requester is sufficient if it includes the following information in plain language targeted to a lay audience: (1) information on how the PRA request was fulfilled and why the agency is now closing the request; (2) a statement that the PRA\u2019s one-year statute of limitations to seek judicial review has started to run because the agency does not intend to further address the request; and (3) a statement that the requester may ask follow-up questions within a reasonable time frame, which may be specified by the agency.<\/p>\n<p>The Court further noted that, to assess the sufficiency of a closing letter, courts and agencies should consult the attorney general\u2019s advisory model rules on public records compliance (Public Records Act\u2014Model Rules), <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.leg.wa.gov\/wac\/default.aspx?cite=44-14&amp;full=true\">chapter 44-14 WAC<\/a>, and the Court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n<p>Click here for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courts.wa.gov\/opinions\/pdf\/1017693.pdf\">a PDF of the Court\u2019s decision in <em>Cousins<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em> For questions regarding PRA compliance, please reach out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pacificalawgroup.com\/practice-areas\/municipal-law\/public-records-and-open-public-meetings\/\">to any member of our municipal law team<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday, April 11, 2024, the Washington Supreme Court issued an important decision regarding the Washington Public Records Act, chapter&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10385,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,57,9,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cases","category-featured-clients","category-litigation","category-stories"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pacificalawgroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Cousins-v-Washington-alert-features.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificalawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificalawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificalawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificalawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificalawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificalawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificalawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificalawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificalawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificalawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}