Opinion ID: 2973336
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Withdrawal of Admitted Statements

Text: During discovery, Jones submitted to the defendants several requests for admissions. Among them was one which stated “The City of Allen Park and Chief Kenneth Dobson retaliated against 14 and harassed Larry Jones because of his testimony in the Marcos Madrigal lawsuit.” The defendants did not respond to the requests until thirty days after they were due, and Jones argues on appeal that the district court should have deemed them admitted and considered them in ruling on the motion for summary judgment. The district court addressed this argument in its order denying Jones’s motion for reconsideration, finding that the request to admit was in improper form because it asked the defendants to admit the ultimate issue, which was vigorously contested, and that the defendants’ motion for summary judgment should be considered to be a motion to withdraw any such admission if it was deemed admitted by operation of law. We decline to undertake the analysis required to determine whether the district court erred, because it is clear that any error is entirely harmless. Even if this statement were deemed admitted, it is vague and conclusory and, in the absence of evidence sufficient to establish a prima facie case of retaliation, wholly insufficient to support any of Jones’s claims. That evidence is, as we have explained, entirely absent.