Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-3_11-cv-08013/USCOURTS-azd-3_11-cv-08013-3/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 190
Nature of Suit: Other Contract Actions
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Breach of Contract

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 The RFA consisted of 87 requests for admission. Also due on that same

date were the plaintiff’s responses to the defendant’s 39 document requests and 25

 WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Del Mar Land Partners, LLC,

 Plaintiff,

vs.

Stanley Consultants, Inc.,

 Defendant.

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No. CV-11-08013-PCT-PGR

 

 ORDER

 

Among the motions pending before the Court is plaintiff Del Mar Land

Partners, LLC’s Motion to Accept Responses to Requests for Admission (Doc. 67).

Having reviewed the parties’ memoranda in light of the relevant record, the Court

finds that the motion should be granted.

Background

Defendant Stanley Consultants, Inc. served its Requests for Admissions (Set

One) (“RFA”) on the plaintiff on February 24, 2012 by hand delivery to an employee

of the plaintiff’s counsel. Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 36(a)(3) and Fed.R.Civ.P.

6(a)(1)(C), the plaintiff’s response to the RFA was due on March 26, 2012.1

 On the

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26 special interrogatories.

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March 26th due date, the plaintiff’s counsel requested a one-day extension because

it had been discovered that the response had been mistakenly calendared by his

office to be due on March 27, 2012. The defendant’s counsel immediately granted

an extension until March 27th at 5:00 p.m. The plaintiff’s counsel both emailed and

mailed a 42-page response to the RFA on March 27th; counsel’s emailed response

showed that the email was transmitted at 5:08 p.m., although the plaintiff’s counsel

has stated in a declaration that the time shown on the email was “likely off by several

minutes.” The defendant has not disputed the correctness of the transmission time

noted on the email, and in fact argues that the 5:08 transmittal time should be

accepted by the Court as correct. The plaintiff contends, without any contradiction

from the defendant, that the defendant never mentioned to it any problem with the

timeliness of its RFA response until the defendant filed its two pending motions for

summary judgment almost two months later.

Pursuant to Rule 36(a)(3), a request for admission is deemed conclusively

admitted if the request is not timely responded to. The defendant argues in its

pending summary judgment motions directed at the plaintiff’s Amended Complaint

and at the defendant’s Counterclaim, both of which motions were filed on May 18,

2012, that the motions should be granted in large part because the plaintiff’s failure

to respond to the RFA by the 5:00 p.m. extension deadline on March 27th means that

the plaintiff has admitted all 87 requests in the RFA and consequently cannot

establish the remaining claims in its Amended Complaint and cannot defeat the

Counterclaim. In its responses to the summary judgment motions, which it filed on

June 18, 2012, the plaintiff argues in part that the motions should be resolved on

their merits, not on the basis of deemed admissions that were served on the

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2

 While the Court agrees with the defendant that the plaintiff’s Rule 36(b)

motion could have, and should have, been filed in a more timely manner, the Court

cannot conclude under the current record that the timing of the motion is by itself a

sufficient reason to deny it.

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defendant on the date they were due, albeit a few minutes later than the defendant’s

extended deadline. The plaintiff reiterated this argument in its Motion to Accept

Responses to Requests for Admission, which it filed on July 3, 2012, the same day

the defendant filed its replies in support of it summary judgment motions.

The plaintiff has moved the Court, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 36(b), to grant it

relief from the deemed admissions by authorizing their withdrawal. As conclusorily

mentioned in the plaintiff’s motion, the Court has the discretion to grant such relief

if (1) the withdrawal of the admissions ”would promote the presentation of the merits

of the action” and (2) the Court “is not persuaded that [the withdrawal] would not

prejudice the requesting party in maintaining or defending the actions on its merits.”

Rule 36(b). The Court, in the exercise of its discretion, concludes that the motion

should be granted because both requirements of Rule 36(b) are satisfied here.2

The first prong of Rule 36(b) is met if the Court is satisfied that upholding the

admissions would practically eliminate any presentation of the merits of the case.

Conlon v. United States, 474 F.3d 616, 621 (9th Cir.2007); Hadley v. United States,

45 F.3d 1345, 1348 (9th Cir. 1995). Given the defendant’s contentions in its

summary judgment motions, the Court concludes that this prong has been met since

the admissions at issue go to the core of the dispute between the parties and the

denial of the requested withdrawal would in large part resolve the dispute in the

defendant’s favor without consideration of the merits of the case.

The second prong of Rule 36(b) is met if the party relying on the deemed

admissions, here the defendant, fails to establish that the withdrawal of the

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3

 While the defendant asserts that the trial of this action is now “imminent,”

the Court notes that there is no trial date currently set.

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admissions would prejudice that party’s case. Hadley, 45 F.3d at 1348. While the

defendant argues that it will be substantially prejudiced if the admissions are allowed

to be withdrawn, the Court is not persuaded. The prejudice that the defendant

asserts it will undergo, which is basically that it understood that the plaintiff had

made the admissions when it took post-admissions depositions, and that it is relying

on the deemed admissions “for purposes of its motion for summary judgment and

trial, and is now unable to conduct further written discovery, notice further

depositions, or file any further motions in this case” is insufficient because the

prejudice that the Court must focus on under this prong is “the prejudice that the

nonmoving party would suffer at trial.” Conlon, 474 F.3d at 623. The rule’s prejudice

requirement is not met merely because “the party who obtained the admission will

now have to convince the factfinder of its truth. Rather, it relates to the difficulty a

party may face in proving its case, e.g., caused by the unavailability of key

witnesses, because of the sudden need to obtain evidence with respect to the

questions previously deemed admitted.” Hadley, 45 F.3d at 1348 (internal quotation

marks omitted). What the defendant has not shown is how its ability to present its

defense at trial will be so adversely affected that the Court should not permit the

admissions to be withdrawn.3 See Conlon, 474 F.3d at 624 (Court concluded that

reliance on a deemed admission in preparing a motion for summary judgment does

not constitute prejudice for Rule 36(b) purposes, and that a lack of discovery, without

more, does not constitute prejudice because the prejudice must relate to the difficulty

a party may face in proving its case at trial.)

Furthermore, the Court is authorized to consider factors other that Rule 36(b)’s

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two-pronged test in determining whether to exercise its discretion, including “whether

the moving party can show good cause for the delay” in responding to the requests

for admission. This factor has also been met because the plaintiff has shown,

through the uncontradicted declaration of its counsel, that its counsel inadvertently

miscalendared the RFA response time by one day, that its counsel and his staff

worked diligently to comply with the defendant’s extended 5:00 p.m. deadline on

May 27, 2012, and that the counsel’s staff had been instructed to mail and email the

plaintiff’s responses by the 5:00 p.m. deadline. The defendant does not argue that

its counsel did not receive the emailed RFA response on May 27th, or that the delay

in transmitting the response was anything more than approximately eight minutes.

Although the Court understands that the defendant has the right to zealously

litigate its position by relying on a strict interpretation of Rule 36(a), the Court

nevertheless notes that it should not be forced to expend its limited resources

adjudicating de minimis and technical violations of the Federal Rules of Civil

Procedure. As a discovery delay, the eight minutes at issue here are about as

insignificant and trifling as is possible, and the Court declines to apply Rule 36(a) in

the inordinately rigid manner that the defendant advocates. Cf. Foman v. Davis, 371

U.S. 178, 181-82 (1962) (“It is too late in the day and entirely contrary to the spirit

of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for decisions on the merits to be avoided on

the basis of such mere technicalities. The Federal Rules reject the approach that

pleading is a game of skill in which one misstep by counsel may be decisive to the

outcome and accept the principle that the purpose of pleading is to facilitate a proper

decision on the merits.”); see also, Reid Bros. Logging Co. v. Ketchikan Pulp Co.,

699 F.2d 1292, 1305 (9th Cir.1983) (Court, in rejecting a formalistic and literal

reading of Fed.R.Civ.P. 38(d), noted that the spirit of the Federal Rules of Civil

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Procedure is that “technical requirements are abolished and judgments be founded

on facts and not on formalistic defects” and that a district court may properly look

“beyond the facial language and appl[y] the Rules in a manner consistent with their

underlying purpose.”)

Because the defendant’s two pending summary judgment motions, with their

accompanying statements of facts, are heavily dependent on the entirety of the RFA

being deemed admitted, the Court concludes that the most judicially economical

course for it to take is to deny both summary judgment motions without prejudice to

the defendant redrafting and refiling them in light of the plaintiff’s responses to the

RFA. Therefore,

IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion to Accept Responses to Requests for

Admission (Doc. 67) is granted.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the defendant’s Motion to Strike

Unauthorized Declaration of Bruce Silver Pursuant to F.R.Cp. 12(f) and Local Rules

of Civil Procedure 7.2(m) (Doc. 71) is denied without prejudice as currently being

moot.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the defendant’s Motion for Summary

Judgment as to Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint Pursuant to FRCP 56 (Doc. 50) and

Motion for Summary Judgment as to Defendant/Counterclaimant’s Counterclaim

Pursuant to FRCP 56 (Doc. 56) are both denied without prejudice.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the deadline for filing motions for summary

judgment is extended to December 21, 2012.

DATED this 5th day of November, 2012.

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