Reported / Citable
Background
Hanna Carroll Restaurant Group catered meals and a bar for John Hagestad’s family during the Masters golf tournament. The parties approved a seven-day menu but never signed a written contract or discussed price. After the group served meals for five days, it invoiced Hagestad for nearly $75,000. Hagestad disputed the amount, and the restaurant group sued for breach of contract.
During discovery, Hagestad denied a request to admit that he had contracted for food and catering services for the seven-day event. A jury later found a contract and awarded the restaurant group $60,391. The group then requested $81,875 in attorney fees and expenses incurred proving the denied matter under California’s cost-of-proof statute. It separately claimed more than $25,000 in court reporter costs. The trial court awarded only $1,950 in cost-of-proof fees and struck all the reporter costs. Both sides appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Fourth District affirmed. A party answering a request for admission must admit every portion that is true and deny or qualify only the remainder. Even if the request bundled several propositions and the restaurant group did not prove every detail, Hagestad could not deny the entire request when he knew that the parties had at least formed a catering contract. Because the group later proved that core fact, it was entitled to the reasonable cost of doing so.
The court upheld the sharply reduced award because the group did not isolate the work spent proving contract formation. Most of the trial concerned the value of the catering, not whether some contract existed. A fee applicant cannot present all fees incurred after a denial and leave the trial judge to determine which entries relate to the specific fact proved. The court also rejected Hagestad’s statutory exceptions: his objections had never been sustained, and the circumstances did not supply a reasonable basis for a blanket denial.
The reporter-cost ruling also stood. The restaurant group did not provide invoices that would allow recoverable items to be separated, or establish that the transcripts were court ordered or otherwise expressly authorized. Hagestad’s suggestion that at least a smaller amount should be taxed was not a concession that the balance was recoverable.
Key Takeaways
- A compound or imperfect request for admission does not excuse a blanket denial of portions the responding party knows are true.
- Cost-of-proof fees compensate expenses tied to proving the specific denied matter; they are not an automatic award of every later litigation expense.
- Fee motions should connect time entries and tasks to each admission proved instead of asking the court to reconstruct the record.
- A party claiming reporter costs should preserve invoices and identify the statutory basis for each recoverable charge.
Why It Matters
Requests for admission are designed to remove undisputed facts from trial. This decision gives California litigators a practical warning on both sides of that process: qualified admissions matter, and precision in the later fee application matters just as much. A broad denial may create fee exposure even when part of the request is debatable.
Counsel seeking reimbursement should keep issue-specific billing records once a significant admission is denied. Parties claiming transcript or reporter expenses should also document which proceedings and products qualify under the costs statutes. Without that proof, even expenses actually paid may be eliminated.