On September 3, 2026, the Washington Supreme Court held in Earl v. Campbell that a public employer cannot make a negligent retention claim disappear simply by conceding its employee acted within the scope of employment. The en banc court reversed a Court of Appeals decision that had treated the retention claim as superfluous once the City of Tacoma conceded scope, and held that vicarious liability and negligent retention are separate causes of action that may be pleaded together. For self-insured cities, counties, and pools, the ruling does not change a damages cap or create new liability. What it changes is evidence access: a direct-liability theory built on what the entity knew about an employee’s fitness now survives alongside the incident claim, and that theory reaches into personnel files, prior complaint histories, and training records that a single-incident defense may have assumed were closed.
What the court decided
The underlying incident dates to 2016, when Tacoma Officer Scott Campbell fatally shot Jacqueline Salyers while executing an arrest warrant. Her mother, Lisa Earl, sued the officer and the City, alleging negligence and vicarious liability. After discovery closed, she uncovered prior domestic violence allegations against a second officer, Aaron Joseph, and moved to amend: adding Joseph’s conduct to the negligence claims and asserting that the City negligently retained him despite knowing about the allegations years earlier.
The trial court allowed the amendment and reopened discovery. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that where an employer concedes its employees acted within the scope of employment, a plaintiff bringing a vicarious liability claim cannot simultaneously pursue negligent retention (Earl v. Campbell, 34 Wn. App. 2d 632, 570 P.3d 392 (2025)).
The Supreme Court rejected that framework. Under CR 8(e)(2), a party may plead as many separate claims as it has “regardless of consistency.” The court had already applied that principle in Beltran-Serrano v. City of Tacoma (193 Wn.2d 537 (2019)), allowing a negligence claim and an intentional-tort claim on the same circumstances. Negligent retention, the court explained, is a direct claim against the employer for its own negligent act in retaining an employee it knew or should have known was unfit, citing Anderson v. Soap Lake School District (191 Wn.2d 343 (2018)). It does not rise or fall with the scope-of-employment inquiry that governs vicarious liability. And because the amended claim relates back to the original filing under CR 15(c), the retention theory attaches to the original complaint date.
Who it affects
Washington local governments are liable for tortious conduct “to the same extent as if they were a private person or corporation” under RCW 4.96.010, and most carry that exposure through self-insurance or joint programs authorized by RCW 48.62.011. The audience for this ruling was visible in the briefing: the Washington Cities Insurance Authority and the Washington Counties Risk Pool both filed amicus briefs supporting the City, alongside the State of Washington. The pools saw the exposure question before the court answered it.
Law enforcement claims are the immediate application, but negligent retention theories reach any employee-facing function: schools (the Anderson standard itself was a school district case), transit operations, public hospitals, and parks staff. For readers outside Washington, the ruling is state law, but the diagnostic travels. Direct-liability-plus-vicarious pleading is a common pattern in public-entity litigation, and the question it raises for reserving is the same everywhere: which open claims carry a personnel-history theory that your case-reserve review treats as redundant?
The reserve mechanism: case adequacy and defense-cost development
This is not an automatic severity trend increase, and it should not be booked as one without claim-level facts. The claim count does not change, and the damages facts of the underlying incident do not change. Three things do change on severe open claims.
First, a second theory survives. A scope concession used to simplify a case to a single vicarious theory. Now a plaintiff keeps a direct claim that can outlive a vicarious defeat and that depends on employment records rather than incident reconstruction. Second, discovery broadens and lengthens. Personnel files, internal complaint histories, and training records pull a single-incident file into a multi-year discovery matter, which extends time to resolution and shifts settlement leverage. Third, defense cost moves before indemnity does. The added theory may run up allocated loss adjustment expense for quarters before any indemnity development appears, which is why defense cost and indemnity should be modeled separately on these claims.
Where this shows up in your reserves
Open the law-enforcement and general liability pages of your development triangle and look at the case-reserve column on severe open claims, not the paid column. The effect surfaces in two places on the actuarial report: the case-reserve adequacy review, where a retention allegation previously treated as duplicative of the vicarious claim needs a fresh look, and the defense-cost development selections, which may not reflect reopened personnel-file discovery. If your program runs through a pool or joint self-insurance authority, ask whether the TPA’s data extract flags theory-of-liability changes at the claim level. Without that flag, an amended pleading can sit in the file for quarters while the case reserve reflects only the original theory. For how these case-level movements aggregate into the triangle, see our guides on public entity general liability IBNR and case reserve strengthening; pool readers will find the same mechanics in our piece on IBNR for public entity pools and JPAs.
What this means for your next review
Put your open Washington claims with conceded scope on the agenda, along with any severe open claims carrying negligent hiring, supervision, or retention allegations. Ask your actuary whether defense-cost development factors on those claims assume the original discovery timeline, and ask your TPA whether an amended complaint or reopened discovery triggers a mandatory case-reserve review. The federal civil-rights side of these files moves on its own track, as our coverage of the Supreme Court’s qualified immunity ruling illustrates; the state direct-liability theory is the piece this decision keeps alive.
Decision-maker checklist
- Pull open Washington claims where scope of employment was conceded and confirm case reserves reflect both the vicarious and direct theories, not just the incident claim.
- Ask your TPA whether a change in theory of liability, an amended pleading, or reopened discovery triggers a mandatory case-reserve review, and get the trigger in writing.
- Check that defense-cost development selections on severe open claims reflect longer, personnel-record-driven discovery timelines.
- Brief pool members and boards plainly: the ruling changes pleading and evidence access, not damages caps or the facts of liability.
- Watch the remand in Earl and early trial-court applications outside policing, especially school, transit, and public-hospital claims.
An independent reserve review brings a second pair of eyes that’s free of the TPA’s or fronting carrier’s incentive structure. We’re working on a directory of independent reviewing actuaries. If you’d like to be considered, get in touch.