The Commercial Electronic Mail Act, or CEMA, is Washington State's 1998 anti-spam statute at RCW 19.190, which makes it unlawful to send a commercial email to a Washington resident carrying false or misleading information in the subject line. A 2025 Washington Supreme Court ruling read that ban to cover ordinary retail sale emails, and roughly 80 to 100 class actions against national retailers followed.
Quick Answer
CEMA is Washington State's Commercial Electronic Mail Act, RCW 19.190, passed in 1998 when most people were still on dial-up and every unwanted email cost real money and time. It bans commercial email sent to a Washington resident that uses a third party's domain name without permission or that contains false or misleading information in the subject line. For almost three decades it produced hardly any litigation. Then, on April 17, 2025, the Washington Supreme Court held in Brown v. Old Navy LLC that the subject-line ban reaches any commercial email — not just spam disguised as a personal message — which made routine "Ends Tonight!" retail marketing potentially actionable at $500 per email, per recipient, with no proof of harm required. Roughly 80 to 100 class actions followed. A June 2026 amendment cut the figure to $100 and added a knowledge requirement, but it is not retroactive, so the existing inventory of cases still runs on the old numbers.
On this page
- What CEMA is
- What the statute actually prohibits
- Brown v. Old Navy, the ruling that woke it up
- What a CEMA claim pays
- The 2026 amendment: House Bill 2274
- The cases: who has been sued
- What has actually settled
- The defenses being raised
- CEMA vs. CAN-SPAM vs. the TCPA
- What this means if you live in Washington
- Frequently asked questions
- Sources
What CEMA Is
The Commercial Electronic Mail Act is Chapter 19.190 of the Revised Code of Washington. The legislature passed it in 1998, in a very different internet. Dial-up was the norm, many households paid for connectivity by the minute, and an inbox full of unsolicited advertising imposed a cost on the recipient that was measurable in both money and time. CEMA was written against that backdrop, as an anti-spam law.Two features of the 1998 drafting turned out to matter far more than anything in the statute's substance. First, CEMA carries a private right of action: the individual who received the email can sue, rather than having to wait for a regulator. Second, it fixes damages by statute on a per-email basis, so a plaintiff never has to prove what any particular message cost them. Those two design choices sat mostly dormant for twenty-seven years and then, after one appellate decision, made the statute one of the most active sources of consumer class litigation in the country.
What the Statute Actually Prohibits
The operative prohibition covers a commercial electronic mail message sent to a Washington resident, or sent from a computer located in Washington, that does either of two things:• Misrepresents its origin. It uses a third party's internet domain name without permission, or otherwise misrepresents or obscures any information identifying the point of origin or the transmission path.
• Misleads in the subject line. It contains false or misleading information in the subject line.
The first branch is classic spoofing and was never controversial. The second branch — eleven words about subject lines — is the entire litigation wave. The chapter also reaches commercial electronic text messages sent to Washington cell phones, and it contains separate provisions on assisting in a violation and on unpermitted use of a domain name.
Nothing in the statute requires the recipient to have opened the email, been deceived by it, lost money, or suffered any inconvenience beyond receiving it. That absence is deliberate in a statutory-damages regime, and it is why the exposure scales with list size rather than with harm.
Brown v. Old Navy, the Ruling That Woke It Up
Before April 2025, CEMA had generated roughly eight cases in its entire history. The prevailing understanding was that the subject-line clause targeted email that disguised its commercial nature — the "I found your wallet" subject line that turns out to be an advertisement. On that reading, an email that obviously announces a sale could not violate the statute, because nobody was tricked about what it was.Brown v. Old Navy LLC, 567 P.3d 38, decided by the Washington Supreme Court on April 17, 2025, rejected that reading by a 5 to 4 vote. The underlying allegation was that the retailer sent promotional emails whose subject lines announced a deadline — "50% Off Today Only," "Sale Ends Tonight" — while the same promotion remained available days later. Old Navy argued CEMA was about concealment, not about the accuracy of an obviously promotional message.
The majority held that the statute's plain language bars any false or misleading information in a commercial email's subject line, whether or not the email's commercial character is obvious. The court did preserve one limit: mere puffery — subjective statements, opinion and hyperbole, of the "Best Deals of the Year" variety — is not actionable. The four dissenting justices wrote that the majority had converted a narrow anti-spam measure into a sweeping truth-in-advertising regime the legislature never enacted.
Whatever one makes of the dispute, its practical effect was immediate. A rule about deceptive spam became a rule about retail promotional calendars, and every national retailer with a Washington subscriber list acquired a potential exposure it had never priced.
What a CEMA Claim Pays
Four features compound into the numbers driving these filings.• Per-email statutory damages. For actions commenced before June 11, 2026, CEMA set damages at $500 per violating email. Each message to each recipient is its own violation.
• No proof of harm. Receipt is the injury the statute recognizes. The recipient need not have opened the email or been misled by it.
• Automatic Consumer Protection Act violation. A CEMA violation is a per se violation of Washington's Consumer Protection Act, which authorizes treble damages — the basis on which plaintiffs have argued the per-email figure reaches $1,500.
• A four-year look-back. The limitations period lets a class reach back four years, multiplying the count of qualifying emails.
A retailer with 100,000 Washington subscribers sending one violating email a week for a year generates a theoretical exposure in the billions on those inputs. That figure is arithmetic on a statutory maximum, not a prediction of any award: no CEMA class has been tried to a damages verdict, courts retain discretion, and constitutional limits on grossly excessive aggregate statutory damages are a live defense argument. The arithmetic matters anyway, because it is what drives settlement leverage.
The 2026 Amendment: House Bill 2274
The Washington legislature responded to the filing wave. House Bill 2274 was signed on March 23, 2026 and took effect on June 11, 2026. It made three changes:• Statutory damages drop from $500 to $100 per email.
• A knowledge element is added — the sender must have actual knowledge that the email contains false or misleading information.
• The amendments do not apply retroactively to causes of action commenced before June 11, 2026.
That last clause is the one that matters most for anyone reading about these cases today. The reform reduces exposure going forward; it does nothing for the large inventory of actions already on file, which remain governed by the $500 figure and the pre-amendment standard. It also produced exactly the incentive one would expect: a rush of filings ahead of the effective date. A smaller per-email figure and a knowledge requirement raise the cost of bringing these cases but do not eliminate the theory, which is why practitioners have characterized the amendment as a speedbump rather than a roadblock.
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The Cases: Who Has Been Sued
The defendants are overwhelmingly national retailers and direct-to-consumer brands with large email programs. Each of the following is a pending or recently filed putative class action in which the allegations are unproven; no court has found any of these companies liable under CEMA, and the companies dispute the claims.• Brown v. Old Navy LLC, No. 2:23-cv-00781-JHC (W.D. Wash.), the case that produced the Washington Supreme Court ruling — alleged false time-limited sales.
• Ma v. Nike, Inc., No. 2:25-cv-01235 (W.D. Wash., filed May 29, 2025) — alleged false time-limited sales.
• Bennett v. Keurig Green Mountain, Inc., No. 2:26-cv-01036 (W.D. Wash., removed from King County) — alleged "TODAY ONLY" and "ENDS TONIGHT" subject lines. OCA's page: Keurig false-urgency email class action.
• Gallo v. Hot Topic, Inc., No. 2:26-cv-02346 (W.D. Wash., removed from Pierce County) — alleged percentage-off and holiday-tethered deadlines that were extended. OCA's page: Hot Topic false-urgency email class action.
• Iniguez v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB, No. 2:26-cv-00244 (E.D. Wash., removed from Spokane County, filed April 30, 2026) — alleged "ends tonight" deadlines that were extended or beaten by a larger discount days later. OCA's page: H&M "last day" sale email class action.
• A CEMA class action against Hanesbrands over "LAST DAY!" free-shipping subject lines. OCA's page: Hanes marketing email CEMA class action.
• Liss v. Skechers USA Inc., No. 3:25-cv-05861 (W.D. Wash., filed September 22, 2025); Shahpur v. Ulta Beauty Inc., No. 2:25-cv-00284 (E.D. Wash.); Arcand v. Catalyst Brands LLC, No. 2:25-cv-01445 (King County Superior Court); and Perkins v. Global Custom Commerce Inc., No. 2:25-cv-01750 (W.D. Wash.).
• Further filings naming Macy's, JCPenney, Discount Tire, Southwest Airlines and VistaPrint, among dozens of others.
The full running list, with case numbers and allegation types, is maintained here: Nike, Macy's and Old Navy email lawsuits — full list of companies sued.
Motions to dismiss have largely not succeeded. Courts in Washington let CEMA subject-line claims past the pleading stage repeatedly through the spring of 2026, including a March 18, 2026 denial of Macy's motion, with Nike, Skechers and Hanesbrands among the other defendants whose dismissal bids failed. Those are procedural rulings about whether a complaint states a claim, not findings that any company violated the statute.
What Has Actually Settled
Far fewer of these cases have produced a public settlement fund than the filing count would suggest, and the reason is structural: a large share of CEMA matters are resolved as individual or small-group demands, which are confidential and generate no docket, no administrator and no claim form.The significant public CEMA settlement fund to date is Costco's. It resolved claims that the warehouse retailer sent Washington residents marketing emails with misleading, time-limited-sounding subject lines, and it created a $14 million fund covering people who received a Costco promotional email while living in Washington between June 2, 2021 and July 7, 2026. Claims required no receipt and no proof of purchase, and approved claimants shared the fund equally. Important: the claim deadline was August 24, 2026 and has passed — the window is closed and no further claims can be submitted. The full page, with the class definition and terms, is here: Costco $14M Washington commercial email (CEMA) settlement.
No other CEMA case in the post-Brown wave has reached an approved settlement with an open consumer claim window. Any site currently inviting Washington residents to "file a CEMA claim" against Old Navy, Nike, Macy's or another named defendant is not describing an approved settlement.
The Defenses Being Raised
• CAN-SPAM preemption. The federal CAN-SPAM Act preempts state statutes regulating commercial email, but carves out state laws that prohibit falsity or deception. Defendants argue post-Brown CEMA has drifted outside that carve-out into general advertising regulation. A federal court rejected that argument in a reported January 2026 decision, holding CEMA's subject-line ban fits within the falsity-and-deception exception. The question is not finally settled and will likely need appellate resolution.• Puffery. Brown itself preserved puffery as a defense, and where the line falls between actionable "Ends Tonight" and non-actionable "Best Deals of the Year" is contested case by case. See OCA's glossary entry on puffery.
• Article III standing. In federal court, defendants argue that receiving an email the recipient never opened is not a concrete injury. This argument has ended other privacy and statutory-damages cases, and it is one reason plaintiffs often prefer Washington state court — and one reason defendants remove to federal court.
• Excessive aggregate damages. Where per-email statutory damages aggregate into the billions, defendants invoke due-process limits on grossly disproportionate statutory awards.
• Class certification. Identifying which subscribers were Washington residents when each email arrived, and which subject lines were actually false rather than merely promotional, are individualized questions defendants press against certification.
CEMA vs. CAN-SPAM vs. the TCPA
Three regimes get conflated in coverage of these cases, and the differences decide whether an individual has a claim at all.• CEMA is state law, covers email to Washington residents, bans misleading subject lines and spoofed origins, and gives the recipient a private right of action with per-email statutory damages and fees.
• CAN-SPAM is the federal commercial email statute. It sets rules on headers, subject lines, opt-outs and physical addresses, but it has no consumer private right of action — enforcement belongs to the FTC, state attorneys general and certain providers. An individual cannot sue under it. OCA's guide: the CAN-SPAM Act explained.
• The TCPA is the federal statute governing calls and texts — autodialed and prerecorded calls, marketing to numbers on the Do Not Call Registry. It carries its own private right of action and is behind most telemarketing settlements that actually pay claims. OCA's hub: TCPA class actions.
The pattern CEMA belongs to is worth naming, because it is recurring: a dormant state statute with per-violation statutory damages and fee-shifting gets rediscovered, and a filing wave follows. Colorado's telemarketing statute is currently going through the same cycle over a 2005 clause about listing cell numbers — see the Colorado PTFA.
What This Means If You Live in Washington
There is no general CEMA claim form. Receiving "Ends Tonight" emails from a retailer does not by itself entitle anyone to $500 — that figure is what a statute authorizes a court to award in a case that is proven, and almost every CEMA case on file is unresolved, with no certified class, no fund and no administrator.The Costco settlement was the one CEMA matter that reached a consumer claims process, and its deadline passed on August 24, 2026. If another CEMA case reaches an approved settlement with an open window, it will appear with a real administrator, a real class definition and a real deadline.
Whether a particular email program gives a particular person a claim is a question for a lawyer licensed in Washington. The statutory right belongs to the recipient, the amendment's effective date changes the analysis depending on when an action was commenced, and the four-year limitations period runs regardless of whether anyone is paying attention to it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does CEMA stand for?
CEMA is the Commercial Electronic Mail Act, Washington State's anti-spam statute, codified at RCW 19.190 and enacted in 1998. It is a state law and applies to commercial email sent to a Washington resident or from a Washington computer.
How much is a CEMA claim worth per email?
For actions commenced before June 11, 2026, CEMA set statutory damages of $500 per violating email. Because a CEMA violation is also a per se violation of Washington's Consumer Protection Act, plaintiffs have argued the figure can be trebled to $1,500. For actions commenced on or after June 11, 2026, House Bill 2274 reduced the statutory figure to $100 per email. These are the amounts a statute authorizes a court to award, not amounts any individual has been promised.
What did Brown v. Old Navy decide?
On April 17, 2025, the Washington Supreme Court held 5 to 4 in Brown v. Old Navy LLC that CEMA's ban on false or misleading subject lines applies to any commercial email, not only to spam that disguises its commercial nature. The court carved out mere puffery — subjective hyperbole such as "Best Deals of the Year" — as not actionable. Four dissenting justices warned the reading turned a narrow anti-spam law into a broad truth-in-advertising regime.
Can I file a claim in a CEMA lawsuit right now?
Only if a specific case has reached an approved settlement with an open claim window. Most of the roughly 80 to 100 CEMA cases are pending lawsuits with no certified class, no fund and no claim form. The Costco $14 million settlement was the significant public CEMA settlement fund, and its claim deadline was August 24, 2026, which has passed.
How is CEMA different from the federal CAN-SPAM Act?
CAN-SPAM is enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general and certain internet service providers — an ordinary consumer cannot sue under it. CEMA gives the individual email recipient a private right of action with per-email statutory damages and attorney fees. CAN-SPAM preempts state email laws except as to falsity and deception, which is the opening CEMA claims are built to fit through.
Does CEMA apply to text messages?
RCW 19.190 addresses commercial electronic mail and also contains provisions on commercial electronic text messages sent to Washington cell phones. The subject-line litigation wave is about email, because a text message has no subject line. Text-message marketing claims are usually brought under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act instead.
Did the 2026 amendment end the CEMA lawsuits?
No. House Bill 2274, signed March 23, 2026 and effective June 11, 2026, cut statutory damages from $500 to $100 per email and added a requirement that the sender have actual knowledge the subject line was false or misleading. It does not apply retroactively to causes of action commenced before June 11, 2026, so the large existing inventory of cases is still governed by the $500 standard.
Sources
• Chapter 19.190 RCW, Commercial Electronic Mail, Revised Code of Washington• Brown v. Old Navy LLC, 567 P.3d 38 (Wash. Apr. 17, 2025); underlying action No. 2:23-cv-00781-JHC (W.D. Wash.)
• Washington House Bill 2274 (2026), signed March 23, 2026, effective June 11, 2026
• Washington Consumer Protection Act, Chapter 19.86 RCW
• Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM), 15 U.S.C. § 7701 et seq., including the preemption provision at § 7707(b)(1)
• Complaints and dockets in the cases cited above, via CourtListener and the respective Washington superior courts
• DLA Piper, "Washington's Commercial Electronic Mail Act: Assessing potential retailer exposure following 2026 amendments"
• Arnold & Porter, "Washington State's CEMA Amendment: A Speedbump, Not a Roadblock"
• Faegre Drinker, "Federal Court Upholds Washington State's Commercial Electronic Mail Act against CAN-SPAM Preemption Argument"
• Epstein Becker Green, "Washington Amends CEMA: Plaintiffs Rush to File Actions Before June 11, 2026 Effective Date"
• Seyfarth Shaw, "An Amendment to Washington's Commercial Electronic Mail Act (CEMA)"
