Washington Raises Mandatory Arbitration Limit To $100,000

Washington was a frontier state in the enactment of legislation in 1979 requiring mandatory arbitration (MAR) of a civil action having an amount in controversy of no more than $15,000 upon demand of either party under Revised Code of Washington (RCW) 7.06. Since 1979, the MAR limit has been increased several times but, for the past several years, the MAR maximum has remained at $50,000. On March 13, 2018, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed into law revised RCW 7.06, increasing the MAR maximum to $100,000 and raising the fee for requesting a trial de novo from $250 to $450 effective September 1, 2018.   

Washington's MAR system is separate from private contractual arbitration. Unlike private arbitration, MAR is governed by a set of MAR rules having the purpose "primarily to alleviate the court congestion and reduce the delay in hearing civil cases." Christie-Lambert Van & Storage Co. v. McLeod, 39 Wn. App. 298, 302, 693 P.2d 161 (1984). To that end, the MAR