WPI 45.20 General Verdict Forms—Personal Injury/ Wrongful Death—Single Defendant—No Contributor...

Use these verdict forms for personal injury or wrongful death actions if a general verdict is desired and if there is a reason to separate past economic, noneconomic, and future economic damages. Use these verdict forms only if there is a single plaintiff and a single defendant, there is no contributory negligence or assumption of risk, and there are no other entities that have been identified as allegedly being at fault for the plaintiff's damages. If there is no reason to separate any elements of damages, use WPI 45.01 (General Verdict Forms—Single Plaintiff and Defendant) instead. For instructions on damages, see WPI Chapter 30 (Personal and Property Damages).

Use WPI 1.08 (Concluding Instruction—For General Verdict Form) and WPI 1.09 (Use of General Verdict Forms for Single Plaintiff and Defendant) with these verdict forms.

Use bracketed material as applicable.

RCW 4.22.070, 4.56.250, and 4.56.260.

RCW 4.22.070(1) requires for the purpose of apportioning damages that a percentage of the total fault be attributed to every entity, including the plaintiff, defendant, and entities not party to the action, that caused the plaintiff's damages. The only entity that is not included under this statute is an entity that is immune from liability under workers' compensation statutes. The enactment of RCW 4.22.070(1) limits the use of these general verdict forms to actions in which there is a single plaintiff and defendant, there is no issue of contributory negligence, and no entities have been identified as allegedly being at fault. In all other actions a special verdict form will be required. See the special verdict forms in this chapter for the Tort Reform Act.

If there is an injury claim by a married person, and the spouse or the marital community is joined as a plaintiff, see the Comment to WPI 30.01.01 (Measure of Economic and Noneconomic Damages—Personal and Property—No Contributory Negligence). It may be necessary to revise the verdict form to set forth separately the items of damages claimed by each spouse and the marital community.

Although RCW 4.56.250(2) placed a ceiling on the amount of noneconomic damages a plaintiff could recover in personal injury or wrongful death actions, the court in Sofie v. Fibreboard Corp., 112 Wn.2d 636, 771 P.2d 711, amended by 780 P.2d 260 (1989), struck down this ceiling, finding that it violated the state constitutional right to trial by jury.

In actions seeking damages for personal injury or property damage, RCW 4.56.260 provides that if a verdict or award for future economic damages is at least one hundred thousand dollars, a party may request that the court enter a judgment providing for “periodic payment in whole or in part of the future economic damages.”

In early editions, the WPI Committee separated past economic, future economic, and noneconomic damages in Verdict Form A, without the use of brackets, to implement the provisions of RCW 4.56.250(2) and RCW 4.56.260. Because RCW 4.56.250(2) has been held unconstitutional, it no longer provides a basis for separating economic and noneconomic damages on the verdict form. Whenever a party may request periodic payment of future economic damages pursuant to RCW 4.56.260, however, it will still be necessary to separate past and future economic and noneconomic damages. Accordingly, the different categories of damages are now bracketed.

There may be other circumstances in which a party may wish to have the jury separately calculate one or more damages elements, such as when the amount of a lien or subrogation interest is in dispute. If such circumstances exist, Verdict Form A will need to be modified to specify the elements of damages the jury should calculate separately.