Sun v. United Recovery Services, LLC
- Thomas Hixson
- 3:22-cv-05887
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Sun v. United Recovery Services, Judge Hixson granted Glen Loma relief from late discovery responses, allowing withdrawn admissions and untimely objections.
Glen Loma Ranch Master Association received relief from the consequences of serving its discovery responses late; the plaintiffs’ requests for admission were no longer treated as conclusively admitted, and Glen Loma’s objections were no longer treated as waived.
What happened
Sun v. United Recovery Services, LLC is a class action brought by Wenting Sun and Xujian Chen against United Recovery Services, LLC and Glen Loma Ranch Master Association. Glen Loma had served discovery responses two days late.
Because of the delay, requests for admission were treated as admitted, and objections to other discovery requests were treated as waived. Glen Loma asked the court to withdraw the admissions and excuse its late objections.
Judge Thomas S. Hixson granted Glen Loma’s motion to withdraw the admissions and granted its motion to excuse the failure to timely object. He found that the relief would help the case be decided on its merits and would not prejudice the plaintiffs.
The detailed version
- Sun v. United Recovery Services, LLC · No. 3:22-cv-05887
- Thomas Hixson
- Apr. 10, 2023
Background
Wenting Sun and Xujian Chen filed a class action complaint against United Recovery Services, LLC, doing business as United Trustee Services, and Glen Loma Ranch Master Association. Glen Loma had a motion to dismiss pending in which it argued that it was not a debt collector or creditor and could not be held responsible for United Recovery Services’ conduct.
While that motion was pending, the plaintiffs served Glen Loma with requests for production, interrogatories, and requests for admission by mail on February 3, 2023. The responses were due March 8, 2023. Glen Loma emailed the plaintiffs on March 10 to request a one-week extension, but the plaintiffs told Glen Loma that the deadline had already passed. Glen Loma electronically served its responses later that day.
Under the applicable rules, the late responses meant that the requests for admission were treated as admitted and that objections to the requests for production and interrogatories were waived. Glen Loma moved for relief from those consequences.
Rulings
The court granted Glen Loma’s motion to withdraw the admissions. The requests for admission asked Glen Loma to admit, among other things, that it was subject to the Rosenthal Act, had violated that law, that the requirements for class certification had been met, and that it had hired United Recovery Services to collect a debt.
The court also granted Glen Loma’s motion to excuse its failure to make timely objections to the interrogatories and requests for production.
Reasoning
For the requests for admission, the court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 36(b), which allows a court to permit withdrawal or amendment of an admission when doing so would promote presentation of the case’s merits and would not prejudice the requesting party’s ability to litigate the case. The court found that leaving the admissions in place would essentially end Glen Loma’s ability to defend the lawsuit on the merits.
For the late objections, the court found good cause to excuse the delay. Glen Loma served the responses only two days late, served them the same day it was alerted to the error, and served the verification for the interrogatories five days late. The court also found no prejudice to the plaintiffs because discovery would remain open until the following January and trial was more than a year away.
The order granted both forms of relief. It did not decide Glen Loma’s pending motion to dismiss or the underlying claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.