Court Opinion

ID: 9665629
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:53:22.91694+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:17.159892
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
The appellant, in his motion for rehearing, contends that this Court erred in failing to hold that appellee’s answers to his request for admissions were a nullity because they were not filed “within ten days” in response to the request. The appellant cites McKinney v. Croan, 144 Tex. 9, 188 *812S.W.2d 144 (1945) which he contends is directly in point. The question, however, in McKinney was whether a reply by defendant to plaintiff’s request for admissions was filed in time. The court in that case stated:
“Plaintiff’s request for admission was not received by defendants until December 16th. The ten days allowed for reply began to run the following day. The time for reply ordinarily would have expired on December 26th. However, that day was Sunday, and under Rule 4 defendants had until December 27th to reply. The reply was deposited in the mail on that day, but was not received by plaintiffs at Big Spring until December 29th. We hold that the reply was made in time.”
In the McKinney case, the issue was not whether the defendants were given enough time in which to file their answer, but whether the answer was timely filed. One of the questions presented in this case was whether appellant’s request for admissions gave the appellee the ten full days allowed by Rule 169. Appellant’s request requires the appellee to answer “within ten days”. Rule 169 allows a party to demand that the request be answered in a “period not less than ten days”. The McKinney case did not rule on the specific point at issue.
It appears to us that appellant’s request for answers “within ten days” did not give the appellee the full ten days allowed by Rule 169. It encompassed a period less than ten days. The request for admissions did not meet the requirements of Rule 169 and was, therefore, defective. Masten v. Gower, 165 S.W.2d 901 (Tex.Civ.App.—Fort Worth, 1942, n. w. h.).
The appellant argues that we were in error in assuming that the trial court apparently granted an oral motion in favor of the appellee for leave to file his answers to the request for admissions late. Be that as it may, the controlling question is whether the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to grant the appellant’s pre-trial motion to have the matter set out in the appellant’s request for admissions taken as true and to strike the appellee’s answer to the motion.
There is nothing presented in the motion for rehearing or in the original record to indicate an abuse of such discretion. The appellant’s proposed construction of Rule 169 would lead to an uncompromising rigidity in procedure calculated to thwart and impede the administration of justice. Rule 169 necessarily lodges some discretion in the trial court as to its enforcement. Smith v. City of Dallas, 404 S.W.2d 839 (Tex.Civ.App.—Dallas 1966, affirmed, 425 S.W.2d 467, Tex.Sup.); Bickel v. American Trust Life Insurance Company, 468 S. W.2d 873 (Tex.Civ.App.—Eastland 1971, ref’d n. r. e.); Sanders v. Harder, 148 Tex. 593, 227 S.W.2d 206 (1950); Meyer v. Tunks, 360 S.W.2d 518 (Tex.Sup.1962).
We have carefully considered appellant’s motion for rehearing and the same is overruled.
Overruled.