Comments on: Facebook + lazy lawyers = Oh Crap.

By: John Pieret

John Pieret — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:07:34 +0000

Joshua:

No, service of a summons and complaint, which starts a lawsuit, can be made by publication. It is a method of last resort, however, and can only be done after convincing a court that you have used “due diligence” to serve the person by one of the other acceptable methods, which appears to have been the case here.

It’s basically a method to start a lawsuit against someone who has absconded.

A subpoena would be a different matter and, while I’ve never had occasion to research it, I doubt that a subpoena could be served by publication.

By: grasshopper

grasshopper — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:47:48 +0000

Kiwis are so behind the times. Such a use for Facebook was applied in Australia last year.

By: Joshua Zelinsky

Joshua Zelinsky — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:54:24 +0000

John, I was under the impression that notices are far more broad issues than this. One could not for example use a newspaper notice to serve a subpoena or that you had filed a lawsuit against a someone. Am I incorrect?

By: John Pieret

John Pieret — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:50:04 +0000

Just to put this in perspective, in the US such service might be made instead by “publication,” which means putting a “notice” in a couple of newspapers. The notice is about the size and type face of a want ad, nestled in amongst hundreds of other such notices, that only the most anal people ever read. Posting something to a Facebook page that there is any reason to believe actually belongs to the person is far more likely to give actual notice to the person than publication will.

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:27:58 +0000

Well, it’s a father suing his own son. It seems reasonable that he would know whether it’s his son’s real Facebook page or not. And since the son is out of the country, and they don’t quite know where he is… Odd, yes, but I’m not sure that it’s as ridiculous as it sounds.

By: Rowan

Rowan — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:12:51 +0000

This is absurd. Given the ability of people to spoof an identity how can they realistically consider this to be a legal service of court documents?