Opinion ID: 1154530
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Superior Court's Award to the City of Interim Attorney's Fees for its Costs in Litigating Ferguson's Withdrawal of Admissions.

Text: The superior court awarded the City $700.00 to compensate the City for litigating the motion to withdraw admissions. The superior court did not specify the basis for its imposition of the $700.00 in costs. Ferguson argues that this award of attorney's fees to the City was error, because the sanction for failure to timely respond to admission requests is to deem the matters admitted and that he possessed an unqualified right under Civil Rule 36(b) to move to withdraw admissions. He further argues that the superior court had no authority to assess the attorney's fees without statute or court rule and that Civil Rules 82, 37(a)(4), and 95(a) do not apply. We affirm the court's interim award of $700.00 for attorney's fees. Under Civil Rule 36(a), a requesting party may move to determine the sufficiency of answers or objections to admissions requests. Alaska R.Civ.P. 36. If the answers are found deficient, the court may deem the matter admitted or order an amended answer be served, or in lieu of these orders, may determine that the final disposition of the request be made at a pretrial conference or at a designated time prior to trial. Id. Finally, under Civil Rule 36(a), the court may award expenses in relation to this motion as provided under Civil Rule 37(a)(4). Id. That is, [t]he losing party on that motion will ordinarily be requested to pay his opponent the expenses incurred on the motion, including a reasonable attorney's fee. 8 C. Wright and A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2265, at 747-48 (1970). In the context of this record, we view the City's motion for summary judgment based on its requested admissions and its objections to Ferguson's motion to withdraw as the functional equivalent of a motion to determine the sufficiency of answers. Here the superior court in effect found Ferguson's answers insufficient when it ruled his motion to withdraw insufficient and in effect gave Ferguson an opportunity to amend his answers when it afforded him the opportunity to amend his motion to withdraw. We therefore conclude that the superior court's $700.00 attorney's fee award to the City for its litigation costs in connection with Ferguson's motion for withdrawal of admissions was authorized under Civil Rules 36(a) and 37(a)(4). [15]