Rule 1.Scope of rules

Rule 1 is the mission statement for Washington’s civil procedure system. It tells courts and litigants that every rule that follows exists to serve one purpose: resolving civil lawsuits filed in superior court in a way that is just, speedy, and inexpensive. Those three words work as an interpretive lens — when a procedural question is not clearly answered elsewhere, courts read the rules through this lens rather than defaulting to technicality for its own sake.

The rule covers “suits of a civil nature,” a phrase broad enough to reach both traditional actions at law and cases that once would have gone to a court of equity. Rule 2 folds those historical categories into a single “civil action,” and Rule 1 makes clear the same procedural rules apply no matter which side of that old line a case would once have fallen on. The one carve-out comes from Rule 81, which lists proceedings — certain special statutory proceedings, for instance — where these rules do not fully apply or apply only by analogy.

A 2024 amendment added a sentence permitting proceedings to be held by remote means. That addition responded to courts’ experience conducting hearings, and sometimes trials, by video when in-person appearance was not always practical. The rule does not spell out which proceedings may be remote or how; it establishes that remote participation is permitted, leaving the mechanics to local practice and the rules that govern each type of proceeding.