Edeh v. Equifax Information Services, LLC, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 128854

Edeh sued Capital One and Equifax under the Fair Credit Reporting Act for improper credit reporting and inadequate investigation of disputes; discovery closed Jan 1, 2013, with deadlines around Jan 15 and Sep 16, 2013, for trial readiness.
Edeh served First Set of Requests for Admissions on Oct. 9, 2012; Equifax timely denied those, then served Amended First Set of Admissions on Oct. 15, 2012, which were deemed admitted when Equifax failed to timely respond.
Magistrate Judge granted Edeh’s motion to deem the Amended Admissions admitted on Apr. 23, 2013, but noted Equifax could move to withdraw the admissions.
Equifax later moved to set aside admissions on Jul. 9, 2013; Edeh opposed for lack of meet-and-confer and substantive prejudice.
Magistrate Judge denied Equifax’s motion on Aug. 5, 2013, on three grounds: lack of proper meet-and-confer, no material impairment but prejudice to Edeh, and lack of good cause for delay.
District Court reverses and grants Equifax’s Motion to Set Aside Admissions, substituting December 26, 2012 responses for the Amended Admissions; finds error in the magistrate’s application of Rule 36(b) and prejudice analysis.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Equifax violated Local Rule 7.1 meet-and-confer before filing	Edeh argues lack of proper meet-and-confer invalidates the motion	Equifax complied with Rule 7.1 by sending a July 9 email and supplementing later	Equifax technically complied; no reversible error on meet-and-confer
Whether Rule 36(b) requirements were satisfied	Withdrawal would promote merits; some admissions are material and controverted	Withdrawal would prejudice Edeh and require careful balance	Rule 36(b) prongs satisfied; admissions withdrawn to promote merits
Whether Edeh was prejudiced by withdrawal of admissions	Deemed admissions informed trial strategy; withdrawal harms preparation	Edeh knew issues contested; prejudice not shown	Prejudice shown to be insufficient; prejudice largely due to Edeh’s own actions; no reversible prejudice
Whether the district court should exercise discretion to grant withdrawal	Court should defer to magistrate if merits require repleading	Discretion should favor withdrawal to resolve on merits; delay is not dispositive	Court held the magistrate erred in denying withdrawal; discretion weighs in favor of withdrawal

FDIC v. Prusia, 18 F.3d 637 (8th Cir. 1994) ( Rule 36(b) prejudice and merits-focused standard)
Am. Petro, Inc. v. Shurtleff, 159 F.R.D. 35 (D. Minn. 1994) (admissions and prejudice considerations under Rule 36(b))
Conlon v. United States, 474 F.3d 616 (9th Cir. 2007) (two-prong test under Rule 36(b) and discretionary factors)
Warren v. Int'l Brotherhood of Teamsters, 544 F.2d 334 (8th Cir. 1976) (timing and trial prejudice considerations for late admissions)
White Consol. Indus., Inc. v. Waterhouse, 158 F.R.D. 429 (D. Minn. 1994) (adequacy of admissions and discovery timing)
U.S. Gypsum Co. v. United States, 333 U.S. 364 (1948) (general principles of clearly erroneous standard in review)