Arkansas requests for admission: your signature is your oath

Signing a discovery response is usually a certification about diligence. Arkansas Rule 36 makes it something heavier, and the sentence that does it sits at the end of a long subsection where it is easy to miss.

Signing is swearing

The last sentence of Rule 36(a):

If an attorney for a party to whom requests for admission are addressed signs an answer, his signature shall be deemed his oath as to the correctness of the answer and his specific authority to bind the party on whose behalf he signs.

Two things are sworn to, and neither is trivial.

The correctness of the answer. Not that reasonable inquiry was made, not that the answer is warranted — its correctness.

And specific authority to bind the party. The signature is a representation that the lawyer had authority to make these admissions on this client's behalf.

The practical consequence is that answers to requests for admission cannot be delegated the way a set of document responses sometimes is. The lawyer who signs is personally on oath as to content, so the client has to be walked through each answer before it goes out — and where the client cannot confirm a matter, the rule's own machinery for saying so has to be used rather than a convenient admission or denial.

It also means a client's later disavowal of an admission runs into the signature. The authority was sworn to when the answer was filed.

Blanket objections do not count

Rule 36(a) closes the shortcut most directly:

A blanket objection to a set of requests will not be recognized.

Then it says what an objection must do instead:

If objection is made, the reasons therefor shall be stated as to the specific request or to a part thereof if it is compound, in which case the remaining parts of the request shall be fully answered.

Two obligations. Objections are stated request by request. And where a request is compound and only part of it is objectionable, "the remaining parts of the request shall be fully answered" — objecting to one clause does not excuse the rest.

The rule goes further and rules out the common formulations by name, providing that it is not sufficient merely to state that a request is not relevant or proportional or is otherwise improper, and requiring the grounds to be stated with particularity.

So a response that opens with a page of preliminary objections and then answers "subject to and without waiving the foregoing" is not a compliant Arkansas response. The objections have to be attached to specific requests, with specific grounds.

They travel alone, and in their own document

Rule 36(c):

Requests for admissions must be filed in a separate document so titled and shall not be combined with interrogatories, document production requests, or any other material.

Three requirements in one sentence: a separate document, so titled, and not combined with anything else.

That is a service requirement with teeth, because requests for admission are the discovery device that admits by default. Burying them inside a combined packet is exactly how a responding party misses them, and Arkansas forecloses it.

If you receive a combined document with admissions folded into it, the defect is worth raising promptly rather than after the deadline has passed.

Thirty days, or forty-five from the summons

The response period is stated with a floor for defendants:

The matter is admitted unless, within 30 days after service of the request, the party to whom the request is directed serves upon the party requesting the admission a written answer or objection addressed to the matter, signed by the party or by his attorney. However, a defendant shall have 30 days after service of the request or 45 days after he has been served with the summons and complaint to answer, whichever time is longer. These time periods may be shortened or lengthened by the court.

A defendant gets the longer of thirty days from the request and forty-five days from service of process. Early requests therefore buy nothing; late requests are answered on the ordinary thirty days.

Requests may be served on the plaintiff after commencement and on any other party with or after service of the summons and complaint. Each matter "shall be separately set forth."

Repeat the request before the answer

Rule 36(a) puts a formatting duty on the responding party:

The party answering requests for admissions shall repeat each request immediately before the answer or objection.

Not a reference by number — the request itself, immediately before the response to it. A response that a court or an opponent can read on its own, without a second document open beside it.

What an answer has to do

The substance requirements are the familiar ones, stated firmly:

The answer shall specifically admit or deny the matter or set forth in detail the reasons why the answering party cannot truthfully admit or deny the matter. A denial shall fairly meet the substance of the requested admission, and when good faith requires that a party qualify his answer or deny only a part of the matter of which an admission is requested, he shall specify so much of it as is true and qualify or deny the remainder.

Lack of information works only with a statement that the party "has made reasonable inquiry and that the information known or readily obtainable by him is insufficient to enable him to admit or deny."

And the objection that a request goes to a contested issue is closed: a party who considers that a matter "presents a genuine issue for trial may not, on that ground alone, object to the request," but may, subject to Rule 37(c), deny it or explain why it cannot admit or deny.

Read that against the oath provision above. Denying is permitted — but the denial is signed under an oath as to its correctness, and Rule 37(c) is where an incorrect denial is paid for.

Testing the answers, and undoing an admission

The requesting party may move to determine the sufficiency of the answers or objections. Unless the court finds an objection justified it orders an answer; if an answer does not comply "it may order either that the matter is admitted or that an amended answer be served"; and in lieu of either the court may fix final disposition at a pre-trial conference or a designated time before trial. Rule 37(a)(4) governs expenses on the motion.

Rule 36(b) makes an admission "conclusively established," and states the withdrawal test:

Subject to the provisions of Rule 16 governing amendment of a pre-trial order, the court may permit withdrawal or amendment when the presentation of the merits of the action will be subserved thereby and the party who obtained the admission fails to satisfy the court that withdrawal or amendment will prejudice him in maintaining his action or defense on the merits.

Two features. The Rule 16 cross-reference means a pre-trial order can make withdrawal harder than the test alone suggests. And prejudice is for the party holding the admission to establish, not for the party seeking withdrawal to disprove.

Admissions stay in the case: an admission "is for the purpose of the pending action only and is not an admission by him for any other purpose, nor may it be used against him in any other proceeding."

A short checklist

If you are serving requests:

1. File them in a separate document, titled as such. Do not combine them with anything.
2. Serve document copies unless they are already available.
3. Set each matter out separately, and avoid compound requests.
4. Move on a non-compliant answer — that is the route that can produce an admission.
5. Raise blanket objections with the court. The rule says they are not recognized.
6. Check whether the 45-day floor applies before treating a defendant's response as late.

If you are responding:

1. Go through every answer with your client before signing. Your signature is an oath as to correctness and authority.
2. Repeat each request immediately before your answer or objection.
3. Object request by request, with specific grounds. A blanket objection is no objection.
4. Answer the unobjectionable parts of a compound request in full.

Where these rules live

• Ark. R. Civ. P. 36 — Requests for admission
• Responding to an Arkansas complaint
• Arkansas motion to compel discovery
• Arkansas depositions
• Arkansas summary judgment

This page explains what the rules say. It isn't legal advice, and what an attorney's oath as to correctness requires on particular facts is a question this page does not answer.