Opinion ID: 743019
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Answers to Request for Admissions

Text: 8 At the close of Palmetto's case, defendants moved for judgment as a matter of law on both the trespass and RICO causes of action. The court then discussed the lack of evidence supporting Palmetto's trespass claims, particularly relating to the defendants who had not taken the stand to testify. The district court granted a recess to allow the plaintiff to produce evidence to avoid a directed verdict. Palmetto returned with defendants' answers to requests for admission, specifically answers 12 and 13. Answers 12 and 13 are as follows, as to each of the individual defendants: 9 12. That this Defendant has been charged with the crime of criminal trespass, in accordance with Section 16-11-610, in the City or County of Greenville, South Carolina. 10 Answer: Admitted. 11 13. That this Defendant has been convicted of the crime of criminal trespass, pursuant to Section 16-11-610, in the City or County of Greenville, South Carolina. 12 Answer: Admitted. 13 Defendants objected to the admission of these admissions as evidence and argue on appeal that the district court erred in allowing Palmetto to introduce the answers. We agree. Taken together, answers 12 and 13 establish only that defendants have been convicted of criminal trespass in or around Greenville, South Carolina. Nothing in the record, for any defendant, ties the conviction admitted in answer 13 to the alleged trespasses at the Palmetto clinic on the dates in question. 14 Based on the evidence in the record, the jury could not find that the answers to the requests for admission are probative of plaintiff's claim that defendants trespassed on the plaintiff's property on the dates in question. As to the defendants who did not testify, there simply is no other evidence of trespass in the record, as the district court recognized at trial. As to these defendants, then, the answers to the requests for admissions were irrelevant under Fed.R.Evid. 401 and should not have been admitted. Although there is evidence in the record from which a jury could infer that the testifying defendants did trespass on the plaintiff's property on the dates in question, see infra Part I.C, none of the evidence ties the conviction admitted in answer 13 to the Palmetto clinic or to any of the dates alleged in Palmetto's complaint. 5 Thus, as to these defendants, as well, the answers to the requests for admission were irrelevant. We therefore hold that the district court erred in admitting, at the close of plaintiff's evidence, answers 12 and 13 to plaintiff's requests for admissions.