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Post by evp5O on Dec 20, 2008 7:23:23 GMT -5
pursuitmag.com/2008/12/service-of-process-via-facebook/Service of Process via Facebook December 16, 2008 by Scott Harrell Australian attorneys can now serve enforceable court documents by posting them on a defendant’s Facebook profile. An Australian Supreme Court judge ruled that lawyers could use the social networking site to serve court notices. Email and SMS text messages via mobile phone have been used before to serve Australian court documents, but the Aussie attorneys who won the ruling are claiming process service by a social networking site, such as Facebook, is a world first. Meyer Vandenberg, lawyers acting on behalf of lender MKM Capital, applied to Master David Harper of the Supreme Court last week to use Facebook to legally serve notice of a judgment on Carmel Rita Corbo and Gordon Kingsley Maxwell Poyser, borrowers who had defaulted on a $150,000 mortgage. Meyer Vandenberg retained private investigators and process servers to serve the judgment on the couple and posted notice of the action in The Canberra Times, however after almost a dozen service attempts, attorneys for MKM Capital tried a different approach. Lawyers Mark McCormack and Jason Oliver convinced the court that Facebook profiles for the defendants were those of Ms. Corbo and Mr. Poyser. “The Facebook profiles showed the defendants’ dates of birth, email addresses and friend lists and the co-defendants were friends with one another,” a spokesman for the firm said. The information available on their profiles was enough to satisfy the court that Facebook was a valid method of communicating with Corbo and Poyser. “You’ve been ‘poked,’ now you’re homeless.” one Facebook pundit observed. The defendants have been successfully served in this matter. Australian courts are regarded as being amongst the most technologically advanced in the world and this innovation goes to further that claim.
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2 Blue 4 U
LER member level 3
Charter Member
Posts: 1,298
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Post by 2 Blue 4 U on Dec 20, 2008 11:31:34 GMT -5
You have been served! Electronically Served!
Doubt that will ever fly over hear, people throw away jury duty notices, can you imagine the excuse it was electronically or digitally sent. Lets start, my computer crashed, email must of gotten lost is cyber space, had a power hit, lost all documents and so forth.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 20, 2008 11:32:56 GMT -5
A loooong time ago, when telephone answering machines became popular I got one so I could pick and choose which court notifications I would accept. I would screen all my calls and only pick up on the ones I liked, otherwise I'd tell Roll Call "Oops, I'm sorry, I missed that one."
The Roll Call guy knew I was lying but he didn't care because he was covered. It was like a game between us.
If they got me at work, I was stuck. I'd have to call the ADA and give him a good excuse.
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Post by vancouverpd on Dec 21, 2008 22:52:00 GMT -5
2 Blue For U,
There was a time that I'd have agreed but it's amazing how much the Internet has changed law enforcement. We've got a thing in Canada know as the Best Evidence Rule which is over 100 years old and essentially says that a court is entitled to insist on seeing the 'Best Evidence' meaning for example, the Master Tape as opposed to a Slave in a wiretap or the Original document as opposed to a Zerox copy.
About 6 years ago I got a call from a friend with the Homicide Squad in Montreal. He was working a case in which some e-mails were believed to contain crucial evidence and said that a cooperating witness had told him the e-mails were held on a server here in Vancouver. He'd already spoken to the people who ran the server and they were quite happy to hand the e-mails over but wanted a court order just to cover themselves.
He got a Search Warrant from a Judge in Montreal and Fed-Ex'd it to me. I got it endorsed by a Judge here and executed it that afternoon. The place itself was an old rooming house converted into a couple of large offices with a bunch of 18 - 20 year old kids clicking away at their laptops.
The guy in charge said "no sweat, we'll e-mail it to you tomorrow". I asked him if he'd print off a copy of everything connected with the case, explaining my need for originals. He looked at me like I had two heads and told me the whole system is paperless and there just are no copies.
The next day I came in to the Squad, opened my laptop, and good as gold, there it was. All I did was hit the Forward Key, type in my buddy's address, hit Send and this guy's on his way to jail for murder. Worst of all, I didn't even have to go there to testify.
It's a whole new world.
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