Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 837346 orderanopinion.pdf

enforces one or more unlawful provisions (plural) in a rental agreement. Here, the

unlawful lease provisions are and relate to (a) the excessive security deposit, (b)

the excessive nonrefundable cleaning fee, and (c) the unsigned checklist. Under

SMC 7.24.060(A)(1), Tenants can properly recover actual and statutory damages

because their lease includes unlawful provisions. What Tenants cannot do is

recover the same actual and statutory damages several times simply because the

lease includes several unlawful provisions under the SMC.

Nor can Tenants simultaneously recover under both the SMC and the RLTA

for each violation at issue here. By way of example, the deposit and checklist

requirements in SMC 7.24.035(E) precisely track the requirements in RCW

59.18.260. 5 Tenants claim, therefore, that they can recover statutory damages

5 SMC 7.24.035(E) states in pertinent part, “No deposit may be collected by a landlord unless the

rental agreement is in writing and a written checklist or statement specifically describing the
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No. 83734-6-I/9

under both provisions. We disagree, as “it is a basic principle of damages . . . that

there shall be no double recovery for the same injury.” Pub. Emps. Mut. Ins. Co. v.

Kelly, 60 Wn. App. 610, 618, 805 P.2d 822 (1991). Additionally, Tenants have not

cited a case where a tenant has recovered under both the RLTA and the SMC for

the same underlying violation. We therefore assume no such case exists. Donner

v. Blue, 187 Wn. App. 51, 61, 347 P.3d 881 (2015) (“‘Where no authorities are

cited in support of a proposition, the court is not required to search out authorities,