St. Mary v. Superior Court
California Court of Appeal
223 Cal. App. 4th 762, 167 Cal. Rptr. 3d 517 (2014)
- Written by Josh Lee, JD
Facts
Lisa St. Mary (plaintiff) invested $475,000, her life savings, with Cedar Funding, Inc. (Cedar Funding) (defendant). The entire investment was lost. St. Mary sued Cedar Funding, Thomas Schellenberg, and Katherine Mills (defendants) for fraud. Schellenberg and Mills served requests for admissions, sometimes referred to as RFAs, on St. Mary. St. Mary asked for an extension of her response deadline. However, the day after the deadline, Schellenberg and Mills denied St. Mary’s extension request. St. Mary responded four days after the deadline. The majority of St. Mary’s responses were just the word “admit” or “deny.” After receiving the responses, Schellenberg and Mills filed a motion to deem all the requests admitted, claiming that the responses were legally deficient. The trial court examined each response and determined that 41 responses were not unequivocal admissions or denials. The trial court then partially granted the motion, deeming those 41 RFAs admitted. St. Mary appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Marquez, J.)
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