§36.4 Comparison with Federal Rule

• Jurisdiction: Washington

§36.4 COMPARISON WITH FEDERAL RULE

The Washington and federal rules currently differ in two essential ways. Under CR 36, requests for admission cannot be combined with any other discovery document; however requests for admission may be served along with other discovery documents as long as the requests for admission are a stand-alone document. The federal rule does not require segregation of requests for admission from other forms of discovery; thus requests for admissions may be combined with other forms of discovery in a single pleading. Secondly, the federal rule does not include the clarification in CR 36 that requests for admission may address central facts in dispute. In practice, Washington courts are reluctant to enforce this provision of CR 36. See Brust v. Newton, 70 Wn.App. 286, 852 P.2d 1092 (1993), review denied, 123 Wn.2d 1010 (1994); Santos v. Dean, 96 Wn.App. 849, 982 P.2d 632 (1999), review denied, 139 Wn.2d 1026 (2000); Willener v. Sweeting,...