Summary
denying motion to withdraw or amend admissions; finding reliance on default admissions by a party who forewent discovery is the type of prejudice contemplated under Rule 36(b)
Summary of this case from Tutrow v. Office Tech, Inc. (S.D.Ind. 4-4-2011)Opinion
No. GOC 1646
November 8, 2001
MEMORANDUM OPINION
This matter comes before the court on Plaintiff Maurice Tidwell's motion for reconsideration of our June 14, 2001, order granting Defendants' motion to strike Plaintiff's answers to Defendants' requests for admission. For the reasons stated below, the motion is denied.
Defendants served Tidwell with a request for admissions in August 2000. According to Fed.R.Civ.Proc. 36(a), Tidwell had 30 days to respond to the requests or the facts contained within the requests would be deemed admitted. No response came until May 2001. On June 14, 2001, we granted Defendants' motion to strike the late answers and in August denied a motion for reconsideration of that motion for lack of prosecution. The instant motion, filed after the parties' agreed cutoff date for discovery, seeks to resurrect the motion denied in August.
This case has been fraught with delays and missed deadlines almost from its inception. Tidwell has given us no reason to conclude that our granting of Defendants' motion to strike was in error, and we decline to reconsider it.
Tidwell also seeks to withdraw or amend his default answers under Fed.R.Civ.Proc. 36(b), which allows such action if it will serve the presentation of the merits of the case and the party who obtained the admission will not be prejudiced by the withdrawal or amendment. Tidwell argues that he meets both these criteria and thus that his default answers should be amended with the information in his late response. We disagree. Although the admitted statements go to whether the Defendants acted reasonably when arresting Tidwell and would thus arguably serve the presentation of the merits, Defendants would clearly be prejudiced if Tidwell was allowed to amend his answers. Defendants relied on months of inaction by Tidwell and two rulings by this court that the matters in the requests were conclusively admitted. Defendants conducted their discovery according to that reliance, and the instant motion was not actively pursued until the time for discovery had expired. As stated in the Advisory Committee Notes to Rule 36(b), if parties such as Defendants cannot depend on the binding effect of admissions obtained under the rule, they cannot safely avoid the time, effort, and expense of preparing proof of the matters of which they have secured admission and the purpose of the rule is frustrated.
Accordingly, we deny Tidwell's motion to reconsider or to withdraw or amend his default admissions.