Malicious Prosecution Counterclaims Now Allowable in the Principal Action—Implicit Abandonement of the Doctrine of Strict Limitation—Wash. Rev. Code § 4.24.350 (Supp. 1977)

With the enactment of R.C.W. § 4.24.350,however, the Washington State Legislature has made the malicious plaintiff an endangered species in this state. The statute eliminates two major common law roadblocks—one procedural, the other substantive—to successful assertion of an action for malicious prosecution of an ordinary civil suit. Unfortunately, because the new law is so intimidatingly expansive in its apparent scope, potential plaintiffs with arguably valid claims may also be deterred from seeking legal redress