OK let’s say you’re being sued for something and no one can find you to serve you.
I thought about this with all the foreclosures. I mean let’s say the bank is going to foreclose but the family knows this and just packs up and leaves.
OK the bank hires someone to go to the house and serve papers on you but the house is empty and the neighbors don’t know anything about where you’ve gone.
Obviously there must be a method of suing you anyway, as long as you can prove you at least tried to serve them, right?
I’m not sure if it applies to foreclosures, but if you can’t serve papers, the next option is sometimes public announcement through the area newspapers and/or the newspapers in the area where you think the person may be.
This surely varies by state and the steps/options for serving someone probably has it’s own section in your state law.
In my jurisdiction, the next step would be to get a court order for substitutional service. This would allow the server to “serve” the papers by substituting a different method for personal service. Popular ways of doing this would include publishing a notice in the newspapers, or posting the paperwork on the door of the last known residence, among others. Note that you must have tried personal service a few times, and be able to prove it, before a judge will grant such an order.
However, service and the rules about it can differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. It’s always best to check the rules in your location before you seek an order and/or attempt a non-standard method of service.
A related question that I’ve wondered about for many years:
About twenty years ago I was at my parents’ home while school was on break. I was alone at home in the middle of a weekday, both my parents were at work. The doorbell rang, I answered it. It was a process server, who thrust a document into my hand and said: “You’ve been served.”
The gist of it was that my Mom was being sued in connection with a car accident that had taken place some weeks earlier. In the end it was all handled by the insurance company; my Mom never even had to set foot in a courtroom.
But here’s what I always wondered: Was my Mom really served? She never got the summons: I did. (Of course, I told her about it, but nobody needed to know that.) If anyone at the address gets it, is it presumed to be properly served?
Again, your laws may vary, maybe they can leave it at the address in your state. But by my state’s law it seems nearly legal. They didn’t identify you, and you didn’t technically live there.
The problem is that they have to record proof of service, so if they go back to the courthouse and sign a form saying they left it with her kid and if your mom doesn’t show up for court, she might find it hard to prove she never got it.
I don’t know what it’s like being a process server, but giving it to anyone in the home was probably a safe bet. I would probably be more careful serving a 20 year old guy at an apartment when hung-over strangers answer the door.
As mentioned by others, process can be made by publication, but a good faith effort needs to be shown before the judge is supposed to let you serve by publication.
This is, of course, a necessity in real life. Imagine a situation where your spouse abandons you and just disappears, and could have ended up living alone in a cave hidden in the mountains of Mongolia for all you know. Service by publication allows you to divorce them, otherwise an injustice would result.
In Ohio, service may be by certified mail, by regular U.S. mail, in person, by the documents being left with someone “of suitable age and discretion” (the same phrase Fubaya used) at the residence, and by publication, in that order of preference. Court approval of any of the less-favored means of service is not required, but if someone later makes a stink about it, you have to be prepared to show that you tried the other, more-favored means first. Generally speaking, courts are not inclined to cut any slack for someone who’s going through contortions to avoid being served legal papers.
WAG: An attempt is made via certified mail first, and the recipient refuses it, fearing the contents. Another letter is sent first class to avoid the “this is very important” flag on it and increase the chance that it’ll be accepted.
Another WAG: They bring in a certified envelope with “rejected by resident” checked off by the postman (or something similar) and use that as proof that process-avoiding is going on, and that they’re making an effort. Maybe if the person figures it out, the standard letter comes back marked “return to sender” and then they have that. If the ad goes in the paper, then they have that as further documentation.
You’re answering the question that’s the opposite of what I asked. Yes you can prove a letter was returned by showing up with the letter marked as such. Everyone seems to be thinking about this from the viewpoint of a scrupulous server and an unscrupulous servee.
I’m asking the opposite. An unscrupulous server claims to have mailed a letter and it wasn’t returned. An innocent servee says it never came. How can the servee fight this if the server’s word it was mailed and unreturned is accepted without question? And really what proof could the server have other than his word?
I think the point is that they can’t start by using First Class mail. By the time it gets to that step, they will have already documented attempts to serve you personally, and at least one refused or ignored certified letter. The pattern is established: they’re attempting to properly serve, and the recipient is resisting. At that point, why would they not go ahead and send it through regular email, instead of just claiming to but not really doing it? They’ve already exhausted the more difficult and costly methods; it seems a reasonable assumption that if they claim that they next sent a First Class letter, they actually did so.
And “the server’s word” – or anyone else’s – under oath isn’t simply dismissed by a court.
There’s no way to prove it either way. So a ‘unscrupulous’ server doesn’t gain anything, fairly or unfairly, by doing it that way. That’s why you use certified delivery. The mail man proves it’s been received - or delivery has been refused.
Yup, that’s pretty much it. FWIW, I’ve never in 18 years of civil litigation seen a defendant allege, after dodging certified mail, that regular mail never reached them.
don’t try to dodge service - the court favors the party making ernest effort.
If you think you can avoid service, you are wrong.
Referred to above, “service by publication” - a 30-word blurb in a paper known only to the lawyers in your town COUNTS - if the court allows it, this service is the same as sticking the papers in your hand. You have been served, and the process commences.
Hiding from the process server is a really bad idea.