NY Magistrate: Legal Papers Can Be Served Via Facebook

New submitter Wylde Stile writes with an interesting case that shows just how pervasive social networking connections have become, including in the eyes of the law. A Staten Island, NY family court support magistrate allowed a Noel Biscoch to serve his ex-wife legal papers via Facebook. Biscoch tried to serve his ex-wife Anna Maria Antigua the old-fashioned way — in person and via postal mail — but his ex-wife had moved with no forwarding address. Antigua maintains an active Facebook account, though, and had even liked some photos on the Biscoch's present wife's Facebook page days before the ruling. The magistrate concluded that the ex-wife could be served through Facebook. If this catches on, I bet a lot of people will end up with legally binding notices caught by spam filters or in their Facebook accounts' "Other" folders.

Comments

Which is why you shouldn't be on such systems

[Karmashock]

Facebook stopped being something you wanted to be on when your aunts and uncles started making accounts.

Facebook stopped being something you wanted to be on when your boss/employer started checking it.

Facebook stopped being something you wanted to be on when the government started sniffing around it for information about you.

Facebook stopped being something you wanted to be on when judges decided it was a reasonable means to serve legal documents.

Get off facebook... it is only down hill from here.

better than a "legal notices " ad in the paper

[raymorris]

This is, I think, the key line in TFA:

> A Family Court official ruled that Noel Biscocho could use Facebook to serve Anna Maria Antigua because other, more traditional methods to slap her with papers have not worked.

Historically, when the defendant absolutely cannot be reached any other way, the service of last resort was to put a classified ad in the "legal notices" section of the newspaper. In order for a judge to accept that, you had to show that you didn't know where the person lived or worked, and had no reasonable means of finding out. It seems to me that in case like this, delivery via the person's _active_ Facebook account is much better than a classified ad,and may well be the best available method of reaching the person.

Re:One more reason

[penguinoid]

1) Find wife's FB password.
2) Keep account active by visiting pages and liking stuff.
3) Get judge to agree to serve legal papers via FB.
4) Profit!