Can Denying a Request for Admission Cost You Attorney Fees in California?

A family asks an upscale Orange County restaurant to cater a week of meals at the Masters golf tournament in Georgia. They approve a seven day menu by email. Nobody signs a contract and nobody mentions a price. The bill arrives at $74,960, the customer thinks it is far too high, and the restaurant sues for breach of contract. In discovery the restaurant asks him to admit that he contracted with it for the catering. He answers with one word: "Deny."

That word cost him attorney fees. In a published opinion filed October 29, 2026, the Court of Appeal said it was publishing the case "to remind litigants of their duties in responding to requests for admission." It also had a pointed message for the side that won, which asked for $81,875 and walked away with $1,950. Both halves matter to anyone in a California business dispute.

Can denying a request for admission cost you attorney fees in California?

Yes. A request for admission asks the other side to admit that a fact is true or a document is genuine. Code of Civil Procedure section 2033.420, subdivision (a) supplies the consequence for refusing. If a party fails to admit a matter, and the party who asked later proves it, the asking party may move for "the reasonable expenses incurred in making that proof, including reasonable attorney's fees."

Subdivision (b) is what gives the statute its teeth. The court "shall make this order" unless it finds one of four things: an objection to the request was sustained (or the response was waived), the admission sought was of no substantial importance, the denying party had reasonable ground to believe it would prevail on the matter, or there was other good reason for the failure to admit. Courts call these awards cost of proof fees. As the opinion explains, they are not a penalty. They reimburse the party that had to spend money proving something the other side should have conceded, and they exist to take settled facts off the table before trial.

This is one of the few places California law shifts attorney fees without a contract clause. Our article on recovering attorney fees in litigation covers the general rule that each side usually pays its own.

What happened in Hanna Carroll Restaurant Group v. Hagestad

The case is Hanna Carroll Restaurant Group LLC v. Hagestad (Oct. 29, 2026, G065313) ___ Cal.App.5th ___, decided by the Fourth Appellate District, Division Three, in an opinion by Justice Moore, on appeal from Orange County Superior Court Judge Nick A. Dourbetas.

John Hagestad and his wife were impressed by a dinner at the restaurant and asked it to feed family and friends for the week their son was competing at the Masters. The restaurant sent a proposed menu with breakfast and dinner for seven days, and the Hagestads approved it. In the end the restaurant served breakfast, dinner, and a full bar for five days, averaging 25 guests a meal, because the family left two days early. Afterward the Hagestads texted that "everything was perfect."

Then the bill came. The invoice was $74,960, after a $5,000 discount. Hagestad disputed it in a letter. The restaurant responded by rescinding the discount and adding another $5,000 for the time and delay in seeking payment, bringing the total to $84,960. He did not pay, and the restaurant sued.

Request for Admission No. 10 asked Hagestad to "Admit, that YOU contracted with Plaintiff for food and catering services for the entire seven days of the Master's [sic] Golf Tournament, in April of 2022." The word "YOU" was defined to include Hagestad and his agents, attorneys, employees, representatives, accountants, and anyone acting for him. Hagestad objected that the request was vague, ambiguous, and compound, and then, "Subject to and without waiving the foregoing objections," answered "Deny."

At trial he acknowledged that the restaurant had provided food and services. The real fight was over what they were worth. The jury awarded the restaurant $60,391.

A blanket denial of a compound request still triggers fees

Hagestad's main argument was a good one on its face. The request bundled several facts together: that he and everyone in the defined "YOU" had contracted, for seven full days, for food and services. The restaurant never proved all of that. The jury only decided that a contract existed, not how many days or meals it covered or who the parties were. The Court of Appeal agreed the request was "unfocused."

It did not matter. Section 2033.220 requires every answer to be "as complete and straightforward as the information reasonably available" permits, and to "Admit so much of the matter involved in the request as is true," while denying "so much of the matter involved in the request as is untrue." The court spelled out what Hagestad could have done: admit that he alone contracted with the restaurant for some food and services at the Masters, and deny or qualify the rest. Instead he denied everything. That forced the restaurant to prove contract formation at trial, which it did, and the restaurant was entitled to the fees it spent doing so.

The mechanism is worth understanding. A sloppy request is not a free pass. The flaws in the request do limit how much the requesting party can recover, as the second half of this case shows, but they do not erase the duty to admit the part that is true.

Objecting does not protect you if you also deny

Hagestad argued that the first exception applied because he had objected. The court rejected that for a simple reason: the exception requires an objection that was sustained, and no court ever ruled on his. By answering "Deny" on top of the objections, he left nothing for the restaurant to challenge in a motion to compel further responses. Relying on American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees v. Metropolitan Water Dist. (2005) 126 Cal.App.4th 247, the court held the restaurant was entitled to treat the answer as an unequivocal denial and get on with proving the point.

In a footnote the court described the better course. A party that truly cannot understand a request, or believes it is improperly compound, can meet and confer, and if that fails, stand on the objections rather than deny. That puts the dispute in front of a judge early, in a motion to compel, instead of at the end of the case in a fee motion.

Hagestad also argued that the exception is broad enough to let a court decide, at the fee stage, whether an objection should have been sustained. The court declined to reach it because he cited no authority and offered no statutory analysis. That question is still open.

"There was no contract" is not reasonable just because nobody signed or named a price

Hagestad's fallback was the reasonable ground exception. Even a narrowed request, he said, would have described a contract so vague that he could reasonably deny it existed.

The court disagreed, and this part of the opinion is useful well beyond discovery. The emails showed the parties agreed the restaurant would provide food and services at the Masters, and the approved menu laid out specific meals for seven days. Those terms were definite enough to form a contract, citing Bustamante v. Intuit, Inc. (2006) 141 Cal.App.4th 199. The missing price did not change that, because, quoting California Lettuce Growers v. Union Sugar Co. (1955) 45 Cal.2d 474, "a contract need not specify price if it can be objectively determined." With that much evidence, denying that any contract existed was not reasonable. The court compared it to Grace v. Mansourian (2015) 240 Cal.App.4th 523, where it was unreasonable for a driver to deny running a red light in the face of substantial evidence that he did.

Business owners deal on emails and approved quotes all the time. If you are sued on one of those deals, a written contract is not the only thing that binds you, as we explain in our breach of contract FAQ. The honest dispute is usually over price or performance, and that is what your discovery answers should say.

The winner still recovered only $1,950 of the $81,875 it asked for

The restaurant did not come out of the appeal happy either. Its fee motion asked for every dollar of attorney fees incurred from the date of the denial through trial. The trial court awarded $1,950, and the Court of Appeal affirmed.

The statute only reimburses the cost of proving the matter that was denied. The moving party has to show which fees went to that issue and separate them from fees spent on everything else; under Grace v. Mansourian, "The requested amounts must be segregated from costs and fees expended to prove other issues." The opinion also quoted Mountjoy v. Bank of America, N.A. (2016) 245 Cal.App.4th 266: it is the obligation of the party seeking fees "'to prune the fee request to comply with the law,'" and that party cannot "'transfer that responsibility onto the trial court.'"

The restaurant made no attempt to segregate. And the denied matter, contract formation, was a minor part of a trial that was mostly about the value of the catering. The court noted that the trial judge could have denied the motion outright for the failure to segregate. Awarding a small amount for a "necessary but minor issue" was not an abuse of discretion. The restaurant complained of "a 97 percent cut"; the court answered that sorting the invoices was the restaurant's job, not the judge's.

It lost on costs too. The trial court struck all $25,741.20 the restaurant claimed for court reporter costs. Code of Civil Procedure section 1033.5 allows "Court reporter fees as established by statute," but it lists "Transcripts of court proceedings not ordered by the court" among the items not allowable except when expressly authorized by law. The restaurant did not produce the reporter's invoices or show which charges were allowable, so the whole item went.

What this means for each side of a business case

Requests for admission are easy to treat as routine paperwork, a step in California discovery answered on a deadline. This case is a reminder that they are where fee exposure gets created, quietly, months before trial.

If you are answering requests for admission:

1. Look for the true part of every request. A request that overstates the facts still has to be admitted to the extent it is true. Admit the core, then deny or qualify the rest in plain words.
2. Do not object and deny at the same time. If a request is genuinely vague or compound, meet and confer, and if that fails, stand on the objection so a judge can rule on it. An objection no one ruled on is not a sustained objection.
3. Measure your denial against your own documents. Emails, approved quotes, and text messages are evidence. If they show a deal, "there was no contract" is a denial you may end up paying for.
4. Deny what you actually dispute. Hagestad's real argument was price. An answer admitting the contract and disputing the amount would have narrowed the trial and likely left nothing for a fee motion to reach.

If you are serving requests for admission:

1. One fact per request. Ask for an admission of the element you need, such as contract formation, without bundling in days, meal counts, or a sweeping definition of who "YOU" includes. Focused requests are harder to deny and easier to collect on.
2. Keep time records by issue. If you will move for cost of proof fees, your billing has to show what was spent proving the denied matter. A motion for all fees from the denial forward invites the result in this case.
3. Document your costs. Keep court reporter invoices and know which charges are allowable before you file a memorandum of costs.

What the decision leaves open

• Judging objections after the fact. Whether a court deciding a fee motion may consider if an unruled objection should have been sustained was raised but not decided.
• How much is enough. The $1,950 figure reflects this record, where formation was a small part of the trial. In a case where the denied fact drives the whole trial, segregated fees could be most of the bill.
• The opinion is new. It was filed October 29, 2026, and could still be modified or reviewed.

Talk to a Los Angeles business litigation attorney

The Darvish Firm's Los Angeles business litigation attorneys handle contract disputes from the first demand letter through discovery, trial, and fee motions, and we draft and answer requests for admission with this exposure in mind. If you have been served with discovery in a business dispute, or you are deciding how to prove a case the other side will not concede, call (310) 677-3512 or request a consultation.

This article is general information about California law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every case depends on its facts. Consult an attorney about your specific situation.