Washington Courts: Press Release Detail

Washington Supreme Court Reaches 100,000th Case Milestone

The Washington Supreme Court this week reached a milestone more than 130 years in the making — opening the 100,000th case to be filed for review since the Court was established following statehood in 1889.

The “motion for discretionary review” was filed late Monday, July 19, involving a case dismissed by the state Court of Appeals. The party to the case asks the Supreme Court to review that dismissal and to reinstate the case. Now the motion for discretionary review goes through the process of determining whether it meets the criteria for review by the Supreme Court.

“The important thing about this milestone is recognizing all of the work that goes into carefully processing the thousands of cases and case documents that are filed with the Court each year,” said Chief Justice Steven C. González. “I commend our Supreme Court Clerk’s Office and our Commissioner’s Office, who work hard to keep us moving efficiently. Our judicial system and courts at all levels function only because of the conscientiousness of court staff working mostly behind the scenes on the detailed work of processing cases that keeps justice moving.”

The Supreme Court Clerk’s Office currently receives and opens well over 1,000 case filings each year, most often petitions for review asking the Court to review lower-court decisions or outcomes. The petitions are then placed into a process for examining whether they meet specific criteria for acceptance by the Court — for instance, cases where a trial court has ruled a statute or ordinance to be unconstitutional, cases where rules of law appear to conflict, or where an issue is of broad public interest and requires a prompt and ultimate determination.

The first case filing to the Washington Supreme Court was Lilienthal v. Wright, 1 Wash. 1, in early 1890, involving an alleged breach of a contract to sell hops. The case was dismissed because it involved a lower court order that was not final, so it was not appealable. The Court’s first opinion in an accepted and reviewed case was Kelly v. Stewart on Feb. 13, 1890, involving the constitutionality of a local court establishing a municipality. In a unanimous opinion with one partial dissent, the five justices determined courts could not perform this legislative function of establishing a city.

For several decades, the Supreme Court was the only appellate court in Washington, but by the 1950s and 60s, the growth in population and appeal cases was overwhelming the Court. Washington citizens approved a constitutional amendment in 1968 creating the Washington state Court of Appeals to serve as an intermediary appellate court which hears all appeals from lower courts, unless an appeal is accepted directly by the Supreme Court. The Court of Appeals launched in 1969 with three divisions located in Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane.

To view current Supreme Court and Court of Appeals decisions, visit https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/. To register to receive email notifications when opinions are issued by these courts, visit https://www.courts.wa.gov/notifications/.

To locate historic court decisions, all published opinions of the state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals dating back through territorial days can be searched free of charge on the Washington State Judicial Opinions website, at https://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/wareports/.

For further information on the operations of the Washington Supreme Court and the Clerk’s Office, visit https://www.courts.wa.gov/appellate_trial_courts/SupremeCourt/?fa=supremecourt.welcome. To learn about the Court of Appeals and its history, visit https://www.courts.wa.gov/appellate_trial_courts/coa50/.