Tenant Rights Deserve Consumer Protections: The Case for Overturning State v. Schwab

Abstract: Tenancy is a precarious housing arrangement—tenants do not own their homes yet depend on housing stability as a foundation for engaging in almost all aspects of life. For more than fifty years, Washington law has decreed it a landlord’s responsibility to maintain safe and secure housing for their tenants. As the Washington State Legislature has declared, “[d]ecent housing for the people of Washington state is a most important public concern.” This strong rhetoric remains at odds with State v. Schwab, the sweeping decision issued by the 1985 Washington State Supreme Court removing tenants from the reach of the Consumer Protection Act—functionally denying them access to meaningful remedies and legally entrenching landlord power over tenants. While state law guarantees landlords the right to ask a court to expeditiously remove a tenant from a rental unit for failing to fulfill their legal obligations, tenants are not similarly empowered to protect their home from a landlord’s unlawful abdication of their duties. This Comment argues that the Court improperly construed the Legislature’s intent in reaching its decision, creating an aberration in Washington’s consumer protection jurisprudence and denying low-income tenants access to meaningful legal remedies.