Washington State law says you can appeal from Small Claims by posting a $100 bond

Bennett Haselton, 2006/10/21

Every Washington clerk and judge will tell you that if you want to appeal a Small Claims ruling, you have to post a bond equal to "twice the amount in controversy, or twice the judgment, whichever is greater", as stated in RCW 12.36.020.

However, there is also an obscure court rule that contradicts that, and states that you can appeal from Small Claims by posting a bond of $100. Nobody actually follows this rule, and I'm not recommending that you try and get a judge or a clerk to follow it, but it's presented here as a curiosity: a rule that nobody follows and nobody knows about, but it's there.

Rules for Appeal of Decisions of Courts of Limited Jurisdiction (RALJ) Rule 1.1 lays out the rules for most court appeals, but says:

(b) These rules do not apply to the de novo review of a decision of a judge who is not admitted to the practice of law in Washington and do not apply to the de novo review on the record of a decision of a small claims court operating under RCW 12.40. The procedures for review of these decisions are set forth in CRLJ 73 and 75.
(emphasis added). So, turning to CRLJ (Civil Rules for Courts of Limited Jurisdiction) 73:
(a) Scope of Rule. This rule applies only to proceedings which are not subject to appellate review under the Rules for Appeal of Decisions of Courts of Limited Jurisdiction.
And according to RALJ 1.1, which we just looked at, that phrase "proceedings which are not subject to appellate review under the Rules for Appeal of Decisions of Courts of Limited Jurisdiction", clearly includes Small Claims.

So then further on in CRLJ 73:

(c) Bond. A bond or undertaking shall be executed on the part of the appellant, except when the appellant is a county, city, town or school district, and filed with and approved by the court of limited jurisdiction with one or more sureties, in the sum of $100...

In summary:

So, what's the answer? Is it the law, or not?

There is an answer of sorts to this "puzzle". If you read CRLJ 73 (including the parts quoted above), it never mentions Small Claims court. Then if you read CRLJ 75, it mentions Small Claims Court explicitly.

So it's pretty clear that what they actually meant to write was that CRLJ 73 applies to the first group of cases mentioned in RALJ 1.1 ("de novo review of a decision of a judge who is not admitted to the practice of law in Washington"), and CRLJ 75 applies to the second group of cases (appeals from Small Claims). They probably meant for CRLJ 73 to say something like:

(a) Scope of Rule. This rule applies only to the review of a decision of a judge who is not admitted to the practice of law in Washington.
But that's not what it says. What they actually did write was:
(a) Scope of Rule. This rule applies only to proceedings which are not subject to appellate review under the Rules for Appeal of Decisions of Courts of Limited Jurisdiction.
which would include Small Claims. However, judges and clerks have apparently always treated this court rule as if it said something else -- namely, that it applies "only to the review of a decision of a judge who is not admitted to the practice of law in Washington", and not to Small Claims cases.

I point this out only because if you decide to bring a series of anti-spam cases in Small Claims court, you'll probably hear judges say over and over that you can "go look it up in the law library", "do legal research", or some variation thereof. But of course in real life, people in the legal profession learn the ropes by working alongside more senior lawyers or clerking for judges, and learning the unwritten rules that actually get followed -- which may or may not correspond to what's written in the law books.

I showed this apparent contradiction to a Washington attorney who commented:

I see your position, agree, and know that it's not the first time the rules contradict themselves, or are otherwise nonsensical.