How to Use This Tool

Understanding the legal authority chain between statutes and regulations

The Legal Hierarchy

Washington law follows a hierarchy of authority:

Constitution Supreme law of the state
↓
Statutes (RCW) Laws written by the Legislature
↓
Regulations (WAC) Rules written by agencies to implement statutes

Agencies cannot create regulations out of thin air. Every WAC must trace back to an RCW that grants the agency authority to regulate in that area. This is called the enabling statute.

Reading a Citation Report

When you generate a report for an RCW section, you see three types of relationships:

RCW Sections Cited BY This RCW

← Dependencies / Incorporations

These are statutes that your RCW references within its own text. They:

  • Define exceptions ("except as provided in RCW...")
  • Specify conditions ("pursuant to RCW...")
  • Incorporate definitions from other statutes
  • Establish limitations on the statute's scope
Implication: These LIMIT or MODIFY your statute. You must read them to understand what your statute actually allows or prohibits.

RCW Sections That CITE This RCW

→ Extensions / Applications

These are statutes that reference your RCW. They:

  • Extend its requirements to new contexts
  • Invoke it as the governing rule for specific situations
  • Create specific applications of the general rule
  • Add additional requirements in certain circumstances
Implication: If you're advising a client in a specific industry or context, one of these may apply.

WAC Sections Citing This RCW

↓ Implementations / Procedures

These are agency regulations that cite your RCW as their statutory authority. They:

  • Provide the procedural details for compliance
  • Define how to follow the statute in practice
  • Establish forms, deadlines, and processes
  • Apply the statute to specific regulated entities
Implication: These tell you HOW to comply. The statute defines WHAT must be done; the regulations define HOW to do it.

The Complete Authority Landscape

To fully understand any statute, you must examine all three relationships:

DEPENDENCIES
What limits it?
What exceptions exist?
→
YOUR STATUTE
RCW XX.XX.XXX
→
EXTENSIONS
Where else does
it apply?
↓
IMPLEMENTATIONS
How do agencies
actually enforce it?

Example: RCW 42.30.110 (Executive Sessions)

Consider a lawyer researching the Open Public Meetings Act's executive session rules:

Relationship Count What They Tell You
Dependencies
Cited by this RCW		 4 Exceptions for proprietary health data, hospital privileges, recording requirements, and which law controls in a conflict.
Extensions
Cite this RCW		 5 Port districts, public corporations, health exchange boards, and health technology committees must follow these rules too.
Implementations
WAC citing this		 9 Specific agencies (Noxious Weed Board, Liquor Board, Energy Facility Council, etc.) have procedural rules about how they conduct executive sessions.

Total landscape: 4 + 5 + 9 = 18 documents minimum to fully understand the legal authority and application of this one statute.

The Problem We Solve

Without this tool, understanding the complete landscape requires:

  • Reading the statute word-by-word to find every citation it contains
  • Searching the entire RCW corpus for every reference to your statute
  • Searching the entire WAC corpus for every regulation citing your statute
  • Reading each result for context and relevance

Traditional Research

Hours of manual searching across multiple PDF repositories and databases.

→

RAGVue Report

One lookup. Complete authority chain. Seconds.

"Legal reasoning takes minutes. Information archaeology takes days. We eliminated the archaeology."
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