In an ever increasing and troubling trend, yet another court has allowed Service of Process using a social networking site.
Yesterday an English High Court ruled that a court injunction (order) could be served via Twitter. The Order approving this service method is being called the Blaney’s Blarney Order after the subject matter of the litigation. The law firm representing the plaintiff in this case claims this is the first time an order has ever been served via Twitter.
Not so fast... It may not be the first time Twitter was used to provide notice to a party to a lawsuit. Earlier this year a Dutch antipiracy group brought suit against Pirate Bay (a Swedish company accused of hosting illegal downloads) and provided notice via Facebook and a Twitter account claiming they weren't able to locate the company founders. See tweet below.
- Can't locate the person to serve
- Get creative in serving the documents
- Claim you weren't served
- Serving the wrong person
In a previous post on this blog dated 9/11/09, I asked the question "Is this the future of Service of Process? If you have not already read that post I encourage you to do so, I cited a few other instances of social networks being used to effect service of process.
What do you think?
What do you think?
I don't see these "Alternative Methods" of Service of Process as a danger to our industry. As long as they are only replacing Service by Publication and are obtained through a Special Court Order.
ReplyDeleteIt makes much more sense to complete service this way, rather than in an obscure newspaper in an obscure section that no one ever looks at. The defendant is much more likely to get actual notice.
I would have a problem if this was the first attempt at service of the subject. Any attempts to change the laws, should be met with resistance like many of the past mailing bills. I believe the same old arguments apply to this new technology.
"Process Servers are disinterested third parties, whose job is to insure the receiving party receives actual notice and insures their right to respond to the pending action."