Washington Negligent Misrepresentation

Hoffer v State of Washington, 110 Wn.2d 415, 428, 755 P.2d 781 (1988):

In negligent misrepresentation "claims, this court follows the standards set out in the second Restatement of Torts. Haberman v. WPPSS, 109 Wn.2d 107, 161-62, 744 P.2d 1032, 750 P.2d 254 (1987); Transamerica Title Ins. Co. v. Johnson, 103 Wn.2d 409, 415-16, 693 P.2d 697 (1985). Those standards are as follows:

(1) One who, in the course of his business, profession or employment, or in any other transaction in which he has a pecuniary interest, supplies false information for the guidance of others in their business transactions, is subject to liability for pecuniary loss caused to them by their justifiable reliance upon the information, if he fails to exercise reasonable care or competence in obtaining or communicating the information.

(2) Except as stated in Subsection (3), the liability 3 stated in Subsection (1) is limited to loss suffered

(a) by the person or one of the limited group of persons for whose benefit and guidance he intends to supply the information or knows that the recipient intends to supply it; and

(b) through reliance upon it in a transaction that he intends the information to influence or knows that the recipient so intends or in a substantially similar transaction.

(3) The liability of one who is under a public duty to give the information extends to loss suffered by any of the class of persons for whose benefit the duty is created, in any of the transactions in which it is intended to protect them.

Restatement (Second) of Torts § 552 (1977)."