A unanimous Washington Supreme Court panel has affirmed a lower court’s ruling that upheld a financial penalty of $5,348.22 against six individuals who attempted to remove Skagit County’s chief prosecutor and three elected commissioners from office. The high court determined that the recall filings were deliberately frivolous and designed to harass the public officials.
This final decision sustains the dismissal of seven separate recall petitions directed at Prosecuting Attorney Richard Weyrich, along with Commissioners Ron Wesen, Peter Browning, and Lisa Janicki. In addition to maintaining the monetary sanction, the court ordered the petitioners to cover the officials’ legal costs associated with the appeals.
The core of the recall efforts relied on alleged procedural errors in the oath filings of six other public servants: three judges, a district court commissioner, and two deputy prosecutors. The challengers contended that these administrative flaws voided the colleagues’ authority and that the four targeted elected officials failed in their duty to intervene.
The Supreme Court dismissed this argument. It ruled that because all six individuals had taken their oaths, any delays or mistakes in the subsequent filing process did not provide a valid basis for recalling the prosecutor or the commissioners. Justice Steven González, writing for the court, noted that an elected official does not commit a recallable offense simply by refusing to adopt a resident’s incorrect legal interpretation.
Under Washington’s recall statutes, courts must first evaluate whether the charges are legally and factually sufficient to proceed, without yet determining the truth of the allegations. In this instance, the justices concluded that every charge that met filing requirements was legally insufficient.
The opinion clarified that submitting a superior court judge’s oath to the secretary of state is not a mandatory step before a judge can begin their duties. Furthermore, the court found that no law conditions a deputy prosecutor’s authority on the formal filing of their oath.
The justices also rejected the petitioners' claim that the targeted officials had a legal obligation to enforce the oath-filing requirements of other employees or the power to declare those positions vacant.
Another argument, that salaries paid to the six public servants constituted a loss of public funds requiring a report to the state auditor, was also thrown out. The court reasoned that since the officials performed their jobs, compensating them for that work did not represent a financial loss to the county.
Additional claims suggested that the prosecutor’s office instructed the county auditor to avoid creating records of judicial oath-filing dates. The court found that the petitioners provided only their own speculation regarding the records, rather than concrete evidence. Other assertions regarding election law violations were dismissed because the petitioners failed to cite any specific relevant statutes.
In justifying the sanctions, the high court referenced prior lower court rulings that had already dismissed similar oath-related claims, as well as evidence indicating the filings were part of a coordinated effort. According to the opinion, a private individual named Cody Hart submitted all seven charging documents to the county auditor individually over a span of roughly two weeks.
The court noted that months before the petitions were launched, the chief civil deputy prosecuting attorney, Erik Pedersen, had sent letters to Hart and another petitioner, Derrill Fussell. In those letters, Pedersen explained that a delayed oath filing did not disqualify a judge and warned that the county might pursue sanctions.
The justices stated that this correspondence supported the lower court’s conclusion that the actions were a coordinated harassment campaign. While emphasizing that citizens are not generally liable for an elected official’s legal fees simply for initiating a recall, the court held that intentionally frivolous petitions filed with the intent to harass can warrant such penalties.
The $5,348.22 amount represents a single award for which six petitioners are jointly and severally liable, rather than a separate assessment against each individual. A seventh petitioner, Timothy Garrison, was not sanctioned by the superior court.
Six petitioners who appealed jointly contended that the sanctions infringed upon their First Amendment and recall rights. The court rejected this challenge, determining that they had not provided a meaningful explanation for why sanctions related to deliberate, coordinated harassment would violate those rights.
A local landowner, who filed a separate appeal, argued that holding him responsible for the shared sanction was unjust because he had only signed his own charges. The justices rejected this argument, determining that he had participated in the coordinated effort and could be held accountable for its costs.
The petitioner also contended that county officials had improperly targeted his tulip farm for code enforcement in violation of a county policy requiring a citizen complaint.
The court ruled that this allegation was outside the scope of his filed recall charges, which concerned a deputy prosecutor’s oath, and noted that the petitioner had not sought to amend them.
The justices explicitly declined to determine whether the petitioner's selective-enforcement theory would be legally and factually sufficient as a recall charge.