On December 6, 2024, the Supreme Court of Texas issued a per curiam opinion (a unanimous opinion where the court speaks as a whole unit) in In re Euless Pizza, LP, et al., reversing the trial and appellate courts’ decisions that prevented the defendants from amending/withdrawing admissions responses. The Euless Pizza opinion is instructive as a reminder of the effect of admissions responses as well as the standard applied when a party needs to amend or withdraw the admission response.
Euless Pizza and Requests for Admissions in Texas
The Euless Pizza case involved a serious accident that occurred as a result of an i Fratelli pizza delivery driver (Rivera) racing another employee, while Rivera was working. Rivera struck another vehicle at an intersection in Grapevine, Texas, seriously injuring an elderly couple in that vehicle. Rivera was indicted on two counts of second-degree felony racing causing serious bodily injury. He was also sued for civil, monetary damages by the couple, who also named several pizza-related entities. The Euless Pizza case focuses on a couple of requests for admissions (RFAs) served on the pizza-related entities, and whether those entities should be allowed to change their initial RFAs responses.
In Texas, RFAs are treated a bit differently than other written discovery instruments such as written interrogatories (ROGs) and document production requests (RFPs). Specifically, RFAs are used to establish certain facts that are not in dispute, often shortening and streamlining the presentation of evidence in a case. Unlike ROGs and RFPs, once RFAs are admitted, court permission must be sought to amend or withdraw the responses. Further, Texas courts have discretion on whether to allow the amendment or withdrawal of an RFA response. As long as the requesting party shows “good cause,” and that the other party will not be “unduly prejudiced,” and that the “presentation of the merits of the action will be subserved” by the requested RFA response amendment/withdrawal, it will usually be allowed. See TEX. R. CIV. P. 198.3.
The RFAs at issue in Euless Pizza concerned whether Rivera was in the course and scope of his employment with the pizza-related defendants. Those RFAs were admitted by the pizza-related defendants only a few months into suit. After several months of discovery, it was discovered that only one of the pizza-related entities actually employed Rivera, so the other non-employing defendants that had admitted the RFAs sought to amend/withdraw their prior course-and-scope admissions. The Texas Supreme Court found that the non-employing defendants showed good cause; that plaintiffs would not be unduly prejudiced; and that the presentation of the merits of the action would be subserved by the requested RFA responses’ amendment/withdrawal.
The lesson here for Texas litigators is that if you are not sure that an RFA as drafted is completely true, admit what you can and deny the remainder. Otherwise, if your client turns out to be wrong in its admission and you need to amend or withdraw the RFA response, you have to seek discretionary court approval to correct the error by satisfying the good cause/lack of undue prejudice/fostering of merits requirements.
