Court Opinion

ID: 9536232
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:56:30.080711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:29.412459
License: Public Domain

Rosellini, J.
(concurring in the result) — I agree that the evidence reveals a case of unfair acts in commerce, giving that concept the liberal interpretation which the statute decrees. The defendant solicited investments in a business venture, and found two investors. The evidence indicates that if he had not succeeded in persuading the plaintiff to supply the needed money, he would have approached others.
Direct solicitation was absent in Lightfoot v. MacDonald, 86 Wn.2d 331, 544 P.2d 88 (1976).1 This is a sufficient factor upon which to distinguish that case. Whether the lawyer who was sued in that action was engaged in "trade or *48commerce" was a question which we left unanswered. At that time, attorneys were not permitted to solicit clients or advertise. We assumed, for purposes of deciding the applicability of the Consumer Protection Act, that the lawyer had engaged in some deception or unfairness, although there was little in the record to indicate that this was the case.
I adhere to the view expressed unanimously by this court in Lightfoot that the act or practice must be one which the Attorney General could attack. This is only another way of saying that the public interest must be involved, for, as we remarked there, the Attorney General is not empowered to bring actions on behalf of private individuals. For this reason, I find incomprehensible the statement in the majority opinion to the effect that if a private individual may sue for any act or practice which the Attorney General might attack, "the act becomes another remedy for virtually all private wrongs." Exactly the opposite is the case: If private remedies under the act are not restricted to those which arise out of transactions which the Attorney General might sue to restrain (those affecting the public interest), the act does indeed become another remedy for purely private wrongs and an authorization of punitive damages for such wrongs.
Some critics of the "private attorney general" theory expressed in Lightfoot and in Seaboard Sur. Co. v. Ralph Williams' Northwest Chrysler Plymouth, Inc., 81 Wn.2d 740, 504 P.2d 1139 (1973), have feared that it places upon the plaintiff the burden of showing that the unfair act or practice complained of is a part of a pattern. But cases decided in this jurisdiction have made it plain that a finding of public interest can be based upon evidence that the defendant is engaged in a trade or in commerce in which the legislature has declared a public interest to exist or which involves solicitation of patronage or investment, that the transaction was solicited, and that the act or practice was not an isolated occurrence but likely to have been repeated. Salois v. Mutual of Omaha Ins. Co., 90 Wn.2d *49355, 581 P.2d 1349 (1978); Testo v. Russ Dunmire Oldsmobile, Inc., 16 Wn. App. 39, 554 P.2d 349, 83 A.L.R.3d 680 (1976); cf. Lookebill v. Mom's Mobile Homes, Inc., 16 Wn. App. 817, 559 P.2d 600 (1977).
In Lightfoot, we took account of that provision of the Consumer Protection Act which directs the state courts to be guided by the interpretation given by the federal courts to the various federal statutes dealing with, the same or similar matters, and which declares that the act was not intended to prohibit acts or practices which are not injurious to the public interest. If that last provision means only that the act is not intended to prohibit beneficial acts, it was unnecessary. It appears more reasonable to view this as an expression of the legislature's concern with the public interest, rather than with purely private wrongs. The United States Supreme Court in Federal Trade Comm'n v. Klesner, 280 U.S. 19, 74 L. Ed. 138, 50 S. Ct. 1, 68 A.L.R. 838 (1929), interpreting the federal act prohibiting unfair and deceptive acts or practices in commerce, declared that to justify a complaint before the commission, the public interest must be specific and substantial.
I doubt very much that the actions complained of here would meet that test, but am willing to give our statute a broader interpretation because it affords a private right of action where the federal statute does not, and because it directs its terms to be liberally construed. Nevertheless, I think the court should not lose sight of the legislature's evident intent, which was to protect the public against consumer fraud and the results of unfair competition, for which private remedies are generally nonexistent or inadequate.
Here, while the defendant was not in the business of soliciting investments, he held himself out as a professional business consultant and in fact had successfully solicited at least one other person. The plaintiff was a stranger to him when he approached her. It can be inferred that he would have solicited others had he not been successful in obtaining the needed money from the plaintiff. Although the *50question is not free from doubt, I will agree that there was a sufficient showing of á pattern of solicitation to have justified the Attorney General in seeking, on behalf of the public, to restrain the defendant's acts under RCW 19.86-.020, had they been brought to his attention.
While the present case is one of borderline eligibility, I believe it can be sustained without extending the act's coverage to categories not intended to be protected. I see no necessity of abandoning the public interest criteria in order to accomplish what the court conceives to be a desirable result.

A comment appearing in 54 Wash. L. Rev. 795 (1979) analyzes the statute and concludes that this court correctly read the statutes to require a showing that the public interest is involved.