WSP settles $340K lawsuit over deleted vaccine mandate records
The Washington State Patrol settled a lawsuit for $340,000 over allegations it destroyed or withheld texts and other records related to the firing of state troopers who refused the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The plaintiffs are former Patrol troopers terminated in October 2021 for refusing the vaccination requirement ordered by then-Gov. Jay Inslee. They are part of a broader lawsuit filed in September 2021 against the governor on behalf of other state workers. That case is ongoing.
Separately, some plaintiffs began filing public records requests with Patrol seeking documents related to the terminations, including litigation hold notices, phone records, texts and emails.
According to the complaint filed in December 2025 by the group who call themselves the “WSP Transparency Task Force,” the petitioners sought the records so “they could be informed on issues of public importance, particularly, the agency’s “termination of tenured employees and failure to accommodate such employees in response to COVID and agency use of technology purchased with public funds.”
The complaint alleged the agency “has an unconstitutional policy of automated deletion of chats” and “encourages deletion of chats and texts” by using the “vague and ambiguous” term called transitory communications to determine if texts and chats should be saved regardless of litigation status or preservation requirements.
An email from Patrol Chief John Batiste, circulated to workers and included in the lawsuit, reminded employees that the agency requires all work-related business to be conducted on state-issued devices.
“And text/chat messaging, even when using WSP-issued devices, must be limited to transitory communications only and shall be deleted promptly after they have served their intended purpose,” it said.
A second complaint filed by the group in March 2025 alleged additional violations of the state’s Public Records Act related to COVID-19 vaccine terminations.
According to Chris Loftis, Patrol’s director of public affairs, the matters were dismissed in Thurston County Superior Court in January 2025 because requesters “who claimed that they had the right to bring a lawsuit under the name of an anonymous and unknown association” failed to establish they had the capacity to sue. Once the case was dismissed, they appealed using their real names, he said.
Loftis said the two cases included nearly 100 separate records requests out of several hundred submitted by plaintiffs over the last few years.
“The Plaintiffs made a wide variety of allegations under multiple legal theories, and WSP anticipated that an issue at trial would be its ability to forensically capture, then produce, transitory and non-transitory text messages from its employees, Loftis said in a statement.
As part of the settlement, the petitioners agreed to withdraw any pending records requests with Patrol and to make “no further requests under the Public Records Act related to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.” They also agreed not to pursue additional litigation over mandate-related records that had already been submitted.
The settlement includes $4,000 for attorney costs and mediation that took place between the parties in March.
Loftis said a total of 132 employees were terminated from Patrol over the vaccine mandate. Of those, he said, 70 were troopers, eight were sergeants and one was a captain.
David Quinlan, communication manager for the state’s Criminal Justice Training Commission, said in an email that the agency cannot comment on active cases but confirmed it has an open complaint related to the lawsuit. He said the complaint is in the intake review stage, during which staff review records and decide whether to pursue an investigation, or close the case if it doesn’t meet statutory criteria.
Quinlan added the CJTC has received “only a handful of complaints alleging PRA violations,” and said such complaints are uncommon.
“To our knowledge, none have resulted in certification revocation,” Quinlan said.
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This story was originally published May 21, 2026 at 5:05 PM.