(1) Required. Every respondent shall file an answer to the amended complaint attached to the notice of hearing, and to any subsequent amendments or complaints that are filed.

(2) Content. The answer shall set out and assert every defense, in law or fact, to the claims of the complaint being answered.

(3) Waiver of defenses not pleaded. Defenses not pleaded in an answer are waived.

(4) Time for filing. An answer shall be filed within twenty days after notice of hearing is served, unless an extension of time is granted in writing by the administrative law judge.

(5) Form of defenses and denials. A respondent shall state in short and plain terms its defenses to each claim asserted and shall admit or deny each averment of the amended complaint. If the respondent is without knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of an averment, the respondent shall so state and this has the effect of a denial. Denials shall fairly meet the substance of the averments denied. When a respondent intends in good faith to deny only a part or a qualification of an averment, the respondent shall specify so much of it as is true and material and shall deny only the remainder.

(6) Affirmative defenses. A respondent who wishes to raise any matter constituting an avoidance or affirmative defense, including those required to be set forth affirmatively by CR 8(c), must plead the matter as an affirmative defense in the respondent's answer. Among the matters which must be pleaded as affirmative defenses are the following:

(a) A bona fide occupational qualification;

(b) Business necessity that justifies a practice that has a discriminatory effect; and

(c) That another statute or rule of law precludes or limits enforcement of the law against discrimination, or regulations or precedents of the commission.

(7) Statutory steps. Any defense that the hearing cannot be held because the respondent has been prejudiced because statutory steps prior to hearing have not been taken, or because of some irregularity in statutory procedure, must be pleaded in the answer by specific negative averment, which shall include such supporting particulars as are within the answering respondent's knowledge or could reasonably have been learned by the answering respondent.

(8) Obligation of good faith. The assertion of denials and defenses is subject to the obligation of good faith set out in WAC 162-08-241(3) and CR-11.

(9) Reply. Unless the administrative law judge orders that a reply to an answer be filed, none shall be necessary. Averments in an answer shall be deemed denied or avoided.