§ 2033.420.Failure to admit genuineness of document or truth of

This section supplies the sanction that sets requests for admission apart from every other discovery method in the chapter: a cost-of-proof penalty for guessing wrong. If a party fails to admit the genuineness of a document or the truth of a matter when asked, and the requesting party later proves that document genuine or that matter true, the requesting party may move the court for an order requiring the party who would not admit it to pay the reasonable expenses incurred in making that proof, including reasonable attorney's fees. The threat behind this section is meant to discourage a party from denying something it has no real basis to dispute, forcing the other side to spend trial resources establishing what should have been conceded from the start.

The court has to grant that order unless one of several listed circumstances applies. No sanction follows if an objection to the request was sustained or a response to it was excused as a waiver, if the admission sought was of no substantial importance to the case, if the party who declined to admit had a reasonable ground to believe it would prevail on the matter at trial, or if some other good reason explains the failure to admit. Those exceptions give a party room to deny a request in good faith, based on a genuine and reasonable belief in its position, without exposing itself to fee-shifting for guessing wrong on a close call.