Request to Admit – Not Your Average Discovery Tool

Let’s be honest about it: no one likes written discovery in civil cases. Practitioners and judges are too familiar with the months-long effort that amounts to stacks of paper full of objections and little substantive information. Thus, it is easy to lump all written discovery into one unsavory group. But requests for admissions under MCR 2.312 are different for two key reasons.

Admission or Denial

First, requests to admit force one party to either admit or deny a fact or conclusion. As MCR 2.312(A) states: “A party may serve on another party a written request for the admission of the truth of a matter within the scope of MCR 2.302(B) stated in the request that relates to statements or opinions of fact or the application of law to fact . . .”

Sanctions

Second, requests to admit require sanctions against a party who refuses admit something later proven to be true. Specifically, MCR 2.313(C)(2) states: “If a party denies the genuineness of a document, or the truth of a matter as requested under MCR 2.312, and if the party requesting the admission later proves the genuineness of the document or the truth of the matter, the requesting party may move for an order requiring the other party to pay the expenses incurred in making that proof, including attorney fees.”

The court rule goes onto to say that “the court shall enter the order” (emphasis added), unless one of four limited exceptions apply:

• The request was held objectionable;
• The admission sought was of no substantial importance;
• The party failing to admit had reasonable ground to believe that he or she might prevail on the matter; or,
• There was other good reason for the failure to admit.

The Michigan Court of Appeals has held that when one of these limited exceptions does not apply, then sanctions are the correct result. For example, in Phinisee v Rogers, 229 Mich App 547, 563 (1998), the defendant refused to admit that he was the father of a child, even though a paternity test demonstrated that he was. The trial court declined to award sanctions, but the Court of Appeals reversed, given the clear medical evidence establishing the father’s paternity.

Similarly, in Shearer v Am Oak Resort, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued July 8, 2021 (Docket No. 348418), the plaintiff requested that the defendants admit that one of the codefendants caused a tracking device to be placed on the plaintiff’s vehicle. The defendants denied the request to admit, despite having testified that they had colluded to place the tracker on the plaintiff’s vehicle. The Court of Appeals held that sanctions were appropriate because the defendants “had no reasonable ground” to believe they might prevail on that issue at trial.

Yes, we are all frustrated by written discovery. But perhaps we might be less frustrated if litigants more effectively used the request to admit tool and if trial courts imposed real consequences against those litigants who baselessly refuse to admit the obvious.

Written by Thomas G. Sinas, Sinas Dranis Law Firm, Shareholder, Attorney, and Managing Partner of the Grand Rapids office.