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Are You Being Served? Don't Open That Email!
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..."
I use hotmail for a reason :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
You've been served.
Guess it's time to get an email address on a non-US server. They can't send a US court jury duty
request to a non-us email address, can they?
Sheesh - how hard can it be? They're both registered in bloody Las Vegas already ...
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc (RIOSPORTS3-DOM)
1023 Cherry Road
Memphis, TN 38117
US
Domain Name: RIOSPORTS.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Wilkins, Bobby (BW1169) hwilkins@HARRAHS.COM
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
1023 Cherry Rd
Memphis, TN 38117-5423
(901) 537-3785 (FAX) (901) 820-2570
Billing Contact:
Howard, Anika (AHU21) anhoward@HARRAHS.COM
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
One Harrah's Court
Las Vegas, NV 89193-8905
702-407-6456 (FAX) 702-407-6500
Record last updated on 14-Jan-2002.
Record expires on 23-Feb-2004.
Record created on 23-Feb-2001.
Database last updated on 21-Mar-2002 02:57:00 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.HARRAHS.COM 12.104.204.36
NS2.HARRAHS.COM 12.104.204.38
Registrant:
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc (BETRIO2-DOM)
1023 Cherry Road
Memphis, TN 38117
US
Domain Name: BETRIO.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Wilkins, Bobby (BW1169) hwilkins@HARRAHS.COM
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
1023 Cherry Rd
Memphis, TN 38117-5423
(901) 537-3785 (FAX) (901) 820-2570
Billing Contact:
Howard, Anika (AHU21) anhoward@HARRAHS.COM
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
One Harrah's Court
Las Vegas, NV 89193-8905
702-407-6456 (FAX) 702-407-6500
Record last updated on 14-Jan-2002.
Record expires on 23-Feb-2004.
Record created on 23-Feb-2001.
Database last updated on 21-Mar-2002 02:57:00 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.HARRAHS.COM 12.104.204.36
NS2.HARRAHS.COM 12.104.204.38
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
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.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
So I can legally send a notice to a spamming company that serves as legal notification if they do not list a phone number or physical address, and it will be backed by this precident.
I love it when a ruling can affect something intelligent, especially when the ruling itself isn't that smart.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
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.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
An important aspect that has been as of yet unmentioned, is what format were these documents sent in? If they were sent in a proprietary format, is the recipient required by law to purchase software to decode the document?
Hmm... I wonder what the implications of something like this are on auto responders. I use TMDA to autmotically respond to any emails that I get from people that I don't know. I wonder if an auto response constitutes being served.
Hmmm...
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
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.
I'm curious why so many posters seem to think this is a Really Bad Thing, or a Really Stupid Thing. Are we all just eager to stay one step ahead of the law?
I for one think this is a Very Good Thing.
1) It's a big step toward legitimizing legal transactions online.This is something that needs to occur for the internet revolution to relaly take hold. The ability for people to make binding agreements virtually would usher in the next generation of e-business. Got an e-summons? Get an e-lawyer! If you can legally serve someone with an email, how long before you can represent someone online?
2) Of course, there are a lot of security issues to work though, but that's good to. Why? Jobs for geeks.
3) They're going to be able to serve a process against this scam artist. That's always nice.
Truth is, if you're actually being served a process, either someone bad is after you or you've done something wrong, like skip out on child support. Making virtual process serving possible doesn't make it easier to file lawsuits, it just makes it easier to let people know about them.
Howard Dean for president
Enlarge your subpoenas - GUARANTEED!
Claimant has a valid trademark dispute
Defendant is not reachable, most likely on purpose
Defendant does have an email address
So you send the mail as a last ditch effort
and then hold a trial in absentia.
How is that not fair?
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.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
This is not a surprise if you actually read the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. FRCP 4 (f) says (in relevant part) (italics added):
... may be effected in a place not within any judicial district of the United States:
...
Unless otherwise provided by federal law, service upon an individual from whom a waiver has not been obtained and filed
(1) by any internationally agreed means reasonably calculated to give notice, such as those means authorized by the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents; or
(2) if there is no internationally agreed means of service or the applicable international agreement allows other means of service, provided that service is reasonably calculated to give notice:
(A) in the manner prescribed by the law of the foreign country for service in that country
...
(C) unless prohibited by the law of the foreign country, by
(i) delivery to the individual personally of a copy of the summons and the complaint; or
(ii) any form of mail requiring a signed receipt, to be addressed and dispatched by the clerk of the court to the party to be served; or
(3) by other means not prohibited by international agreement as may be directed by the court.
Plus, under FRCP 4 (d) (2) (b) the defendant has a duty to avoid costs of service if a waiver of service is requested "through first-class mail or other relaible means."
The touchstone of whether service of process comports with due process is whether it is a method reasonably calculated to give notice under the circumstances. Our office regularly files cases requesting emergency authorization to demolish buildings that are in an imminently dangerous and hazardous condition and we provide notice by fax or by leaving messages on voice mail or by posting a notice on the door of the building. Under the circumstances that someone may be killed by a falling building if something is not done quickly, that is always sufficient notice under the circumstances.
In this case, the defendants were in a foreign country, at a concealed address, and the only known method of providing notice was via e-mail. Under many state laws, service by publication (those little ads in the back of the newspaper) is effective and constitutional. Certainly service via e-mail to the address provided by the defendant is more reasonably calculated to give notice than publication in the Law Bulletin would be.
This is yet another case of somebody seeing a high-tech buzzword and thinking it's hot news when it's really something that people have been doing for years.
"It looks like you are frantically trying to erase the record of your having been electronically served papers. Would you like help with that?"
visit the hwky website for a lyrical genius infusion.
They don't have to find you. If it appears that you are unavailable, intentionally or otherwise, and the plaintiff has made a serious effort to contact/locate you, you can be served by publication. Which means that if the court thinks you are in Los Angeles, CA, then all they have to do is put a small add in the classifieds (public notices) in a major LA paper, and then you've been served. Regardless of whether you've ever been in California or not. And yes you will by default if you don't show up for your court date.
The new AOL email notification!
"You have subpoena"
A con artist (read telecom provider or spam mailer) could send you an email authorizing them to suspend your anit-slam rights, and then trigger the authentication themselves by just making the HTTP request from another computer.
They'd have to prove that you, and only you, were capable of having knowledge or record of the authenticating URL. On the Internet, that means everything from certification that their software is bug-free and uncracked to certification that the packets weren't sniffed on the Internet to gaurantee that your employer doesn't archive your email as company policy. That reaches a point of impossibility after a while.
This means there'll be more demand for public key encryption. They'll need my public key (and they can't give me a private key...it might be intercepted on the Internet) to prove that the request I send to them really comes from me. This would have to happen by me sending a response encoded with my private key.
What's this Submit thingy do?
I am not a lawyer, but my father delivers subpoenas for a living to men who have not paid child support. I asked him in the past about people refusing to accept subpoenas when he hands them to them. He explained that telling the party of the subpoena is sufficient for the subpoena to be served, and all that is required is that he a) notify them of the subpoena, and b) make it available to them. Refusing to accept the subpoena, not reading it, dropping it, ripping it up, or even claiming you aren't the person the subpoena is supposed to go to, do *nothing* to cancel the fact that the process server has, in fact, found you and given you sufficient notice of the legal document. In fact, a process server can simply used the scattershot method: deliver subpoenas to your home, your work, your gym, your parents' home, your girlfriend's house, your past addresses, everywhere, and in most cases it is sufficient to shove it in the mail slot, leave it in the mailbox, put it inside the screen door, hand it to another family member or household resident, put it under a windshield wiper, etc. Such a subpoena is considered served. You have been given sufficient notice. The court would prefer you pay attention to that notice, but it's your loss if you don't. So claiming you didn't get or didn't read an email message which you did indeed receive is likely an insufficient argument in the eyes of the court, particularly if there's strong evidence that you do, in fact, use the email address in question.
I should add that contrary to what you might think, most of the people who are served subpoenas are apologetic and civil, even a little bashful about having to have someone official notify them of a legal matter related to their own mistakes.
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
But the decision opened the door.
Picture this: the church of Scientology decides to nail you, for whatever reason.
They set up a court case, timing the service of process for some time you are not available, and would be unaware of the matter.
After not finding you in person, they serve up an e-summons to an email account you don't use much. Stipulated in the summons: if you don't respond, you automatically lose your case.
After a set period of time, you are informed that you have lost your house, your car, and maybe even your job, depending on many fake charges they managed to pile on you, because the judge automatically ruled you guilty of whatever BS they thought up.
My family, long ago, lost a civil case because the bailiff mispronounced our last name so badly that we didn't approach the judge. The plaintiff, although he knew we were there, swifty told the judge we were absent, and we lost the case by default.
Wonderful, ain't it?