Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 726668.pdf

Citation: Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 726668.pdf
Jurisdiction: Washington (state)
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Original Source: https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/726668.pdf ↗

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conversations. This court denied discretionary review of these rulings.
             

No. 72666-8-1 / 8

We review a trial court's interpretation of statutes and court rules de novo.5

We review for abuse of discretion a trial court's choice of sanctions for violation

of a discovery order.6

Marin first contends that his conversations with Sagnis were not "private"

under RCW 9.73.030. No statute defines the term "private." To determine

whether a conversation is private under the privacy act, we consider "(1) the

subject matter of the communication, (2) the location of the participants, (3) the

potential presence of third parties, (4) the role of the interloper, (5) whether the

parties 'manifest a subjective intention that it be private,' and (6) whether any

subjective intention of privacy is reasonable."7

Here, Marin and Sagnis had lengthy conversations in an office at work that

involved only the two of them. No third party was present. Marin does not

meaningfully distinguish Smith v. Employment Security Department,8 where the

court found conversations between public employees in an office to be private as

a matter of law. Nor does he cite to authority to support his argument that the

conversations were "public in nature" because they were between two

government employees who each later revealed parts of what was said. We