"actual damages." Rasor, 87 Wn.2d at 530 n.3. We presume that the legislature
knew the controlling law in the area in which it was legislating when it passed RCW
59.18.085 in 2005. Wynn v. Earin, 163 Wn.2d 361, 371, 181 P.3d 806 (2008) (citing
Price v. Kitsap Transit, 125 Wn.2d 456, 463, 886 P.2d 556 (1994)). 3 Although the
3 The Court of Appeals relied in large part on White River Estates v. Hiltbruner, 134
Wn.2d 761, 953 P.2d 796 (1998). In that case, however, we held that when a statute is
silent about the damages available for its violation, emotional distress damages are
available only if the statutory violation requires conduct amounting to an intentional tort,
as opposed to mere negligence. !d. at 766. White River Estates' intentional-versus-
negligent test does not apply to the RL TA, which explicitly describes the damages
recoverable for a landlord's violation. See RCW 59.18.085(3)(e).
8
Segura v. Cabrera, No. 90088-4
(Gordon McCloud, J., Concurring in Result)
majority dismisses these cases as "involv[ing] different statutes with different
language and different purposes," majority at 8, nothing in Rasor or Martini suggests
that their discussions of "actual damages" were limited to the statutes at issue in
those cases. 4
The majority argues that under Federal Aviation Administration v. Cooper,
_U.S._, 132 S. Ct. 1441, 1449, 182 L. Ed. 2d 497 (2012), '"the precise meaning
of the term ["actual damages"] "changes with the specific statute in which it is
found."' Majority at 9 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Cooper, 132 S.
Ct. at 1449). But that case does not control here. The issue presented in Cooper