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Are You Being Served? Don't Open That Email!

Posted by timothy on from the imagine-future-spam-subject-lines dept.

An unnamed reader writes: "A federal appeals court has ruled that legal documents can be served by email. Since the party had no physical address, the court ruled that email was a viable option. So, before you open that next email, you might want to consider if it's something you might want to avoid! And it wouldn't be spam..."

9 of 316 comments (clear)

  1. Prove I opened it by Archfeld · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I use hotmail for a reason :)

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    errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
    1. Re:Prove I opened it by bmongar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you use html views of a message they can prove you opened it by embeding a web-bug in the address. That is an image that loads remotely, if the image is loaded from that location you opened the mail.

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      As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
    2. Re:Prove I opened it by Ooblek · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It doesn't matter if you opened it or not really. After a while, they assume you are avoiding being served and just call it done. Too bad if you never knew about it. I believe there was a lawsuit that Art Bell had going against some dork that was accusing him of being a child molester. The guy was avoiding being served, so the deputy eventually concluded that he was illegally avoiding service.

  2. Registerred Email by ksw2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Until you can confirm the receipt beyond a reasonable doubt, I don't think this will become a widespread practice. How hard is it to forge a bounced message?

    Anyway, undoubtedly if you do have a physical address, it will be used instead. The case mentioned in the article seems to be an isolated one.

  3. Read carefully - "hide-and-seek" comment by Seth+Finkelstein · · Score: 5, Insightful
    "When faced with an international e-business scofflaw playing hide-and-seek with the federal court, e-mail may be the only means of effecting service of process," the court said. "We acknowledge that we tread upon untrodden ground."
    I think the court is NOT saying that it will allow service by e-mail as a routine matter. But in cases where the party is trying to claim to be both available (by e-mail) and NOT available (physically), the court will allow the party's obvious prefered method of being reached :-)

    Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

  4. I can see the fakes flying already. by IPFreely · · Score: 4, Insightful
    So someone starts sending fake summons via email with faked return addresses. How do you know what's real in E-mail.

    Now hundreds of people are hiring lawyers and showing up in court on dates they were never expected for summons that were never issues.

    There are reasons why papers must be served in person; so everyone on both sides knows it happened for real. Summons by regular mail is bad enough.

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    There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
  5. Re:um ... whois ? by cybermage · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, nice try. I'd bet (pun intended) that the information from whois, before Harrah's took the domains, was probably more obtuse.

    Harrah's operates the Rio; they probably took over the domains as part of the story.

    My first thought was the same as yours, but the information seems to reflect the results of Harrah's legal actions.

    Of course, even if the whois information isn't accurate, the money going to the sites had to go somewhere. Follow the money.

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    Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
  6. Not all "papers" served are "bad" by Glove+d'OJ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not everything for which you may be summoned to court is a bad thing. My brother serves papers for various lawyers in NY, and every so often while visiting, I would go with him if he had a tricky paper to serve. On several occasions, the papers were "come to court and collect your inheiritance" type papers, where the people actually welcomed him in and offered food+drink.

    Were the legal system to start contemplating e-Service of paperwork, these "warmfuzzy" services could be first served electronically, as their degree of repudiation ("I never got served") would be extremely low.

  7. Here's why... by Da+VinMan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a bad/stupid thing (depending on your perspective) because this ruling is effective with TODAY'S technology. That means that there won't necessarily be any evidence that the notice was really served, that it was secure, etc. Do you really trust POP/IMAP/HTTP enough for this purpose? Do you really? This probably has implications for contracts too. I would be very careful about this, or you'll get what you wish for (example below).

    You: "Your honor, I am not bound by this contract because this email did not come from me. It was forged."

    The judge: "Prove it."

    You: [Blank stare.]

    It would be pretty easy to drum up a whole stack of lawsuits based on forged mail. Hell, you could fake contracts of all sorts and pretend people owe you something in the hopes that they'll pay you something just to go away and not have to show up in court.

    I doubt any self-respecting law firm is going to use this as their primary means of serving papers anyway, despite the ruling.

    Also, think of this: if the party in question is so elusive that you are totally unable to serve them in person, then what real means of enforcement do you have in dragging them to court? So maybe you can get their site shut down? What if they're not the hosting company? What redress really occurred then?

    No sir, I don't like it. Between this and e-voting, I smell real trouble.

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