§ 2033.010.Persons subject to admission requests; restrictions; scope of requests

This section opens the requests-for-admission chapter with the basic grant of authority. Any party may serve a written request asking another party to admit something, subject to the general scope-of-discovery rules and the restrictions that apply across every discovery method. Unlike an interrogatory or a deposition question, a request for admission is not built to dig up new facts. It is built to test whether a fact the propounding party already believes is true will be contested, so the parties know before trial which issues are real and which ones are not worth fighting over.

The section reaches three different things a party might be asked to admit: that a specific document is genuine, that a specific matter of fact is true, or that an opinion relating to fact, or the application of law to fact, is correct. That last category lets a request ask about a conclusion drawn from facts, not only about a raw fact standing alone. One limit runs through all three: the request has to relate to a matter that is in controversy between the parties. A request about something nobody disputes, or something with no bearing on the claims or defenses at issue, falls outside what this section authorizes.