Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Judge: Lawsuits Now Can Be Served Using Twitter (usnews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the modernization-of-laws dept.

Reader schwit1 writes: A Kuwaiti religious leader who allegedly raised money for jihadist rebels in Syria appears poised to become the first foreigner served a U.S. lawsuit via Twitter.

Hajjaj bin Fahd al-Ajmi has been a hard man to reach for a lawyer seeking compensation in a northern California federal court on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Assyrian Christians who own property in Iraq and Syria.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler, resolving the impasse, found al-Ajmi has "an active Twitter account and continues to use it," offering the "method of service most likely to reach" him to satisfy the service of process requirement for the case to move forward.

Al-Ajmi is accused by both the U.S. government and the U.N. Security Council of funneling money to armed terrorists.

5 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. jurisdiction? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    a u.s. court is hearing a case involving property rights in foreign countries? wtf. i get that they may have a valid complaint; but shit, this is just a little out-of-bounds... even by twisted u.s. government standards.

    1. Re:jurisdiction? by unixisc · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The Assyrian plaintiffs in this case - aren't they Nor Cal residents who've fled Iraq/Syria and come here, even though their property there is still in their name? That would be how - and why

  2. Re:Twitter? by dunkindave · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have only read the summary but I think the title is misleading. This doesn't mean people can now use Twitter for serving, just that in this one case a judge signed off on it due to circumstances.

    The law spells out how a person must be served, but if you can show the Court that you couldn't do it as prescribed, you can ask the Court for permission to do it another way which is what I think happened here. They presented the Court with an argument for why they needed to use an alternative means of serving, in this case using Twitter, and the Court approved the plan. If the defendant later wants to argue they were unaware of the suit then they can, but for now it is considered a valid serving since the Court gave it its stamp of approval.

  3. Verification by phorm · · Score: 2

    And you can validate that he's the one with the twitter account, and that he's the one that actually signed in.

    Heck, one of the most popular twitter accounts used to be this one, and while it obviously has "fake" in the name, I'm fairly sure there are lots of fake ones out there. For all I know there could be somebody posing as me on twitter or facebook etc right now.

    But hey, it's a crazy terrorist so let's just create some horrible laws or legal precedent. It's not like some jackass will abuse it but creating a impersonation twitter/FB account of somebody they don't like, serving them papers, and then getting a default judgement when they don't show.

  4. Re:Twitter? by johanw · · Score: 2

    He can also just ignore that judge since he will probably never set foor on US soil. Unless he is illegally kidnapped by the CIA.