In Reality, They Can't Find You. But Virtually, They Can. And You Are Still In Real Trouble First use of Facebook to serve legal documents
Facebook has been used for the first time to serve legal documents to defendants who could not be be located in the real world but who could be located on the web.
A Canberra, Australia, court ordered that a judgment be served to defendants via their Facebook page when they failed to show up for court and an address for them could not be located.
"Both myself and my colleague Jason Oliver have Facebook accounts, so we thought we could access that and see if we could find them," said attorney Mark McCormack.
The two co-defendants were listed as being friends in their Facebook profiles and their birth dates matched those of the defendants being sought, satisfying the court that these were the men.
Email and cell phone text messages have been used to serve legal notices as well.
I wonder if they send it as an application, if they would get it. I delete all mine.
Nope, don't agree with it, should still have to be placed in a person's hand, rather than just sent into cyberspace. Just because they have a profile somewhere doesn't mean they actually check it often, or that it's really them.
kidatheart: I wonder if they send it as an application, if they would get it. I delete all mine.
Nope, don't agree with it, should still have to be placed in a person's hand, rather than just sent into cyberspace. Just because they have a profile somewhere doesn't mean they actually check it often, or that it's really them.
What next, tax collectors?
Yep I agree...here it has to be served in person or some documents can be served by registered mail...but that's it..it's a pain in the assssss but you know the right person got it and they have no excuse for not showing for court then....
CjTenorSax: Can't see it as being enforceable. But I imagine that it will now set a precedent and make even more laws for the books, as if we don't have enough.
kidatheart: I wonder if they send it as an application, if they would get it. I delete all mine.
Nope, don't agree with it, should still have to be placed in a person's hand, rather than just sent into cyberspace. Just because they have a profile somewhere doesn't mean they actually check it often, or that it's really them.
What next, tax collectors?
Agree, how could anyone know if it really is the person being sought?
Finger print, SSN, drivers license number... or any kind of realt ID missing???
WTF
I would think the courts would have a hard time later enforcing any kind of warrant for not appearing.
You can send an e-mail with a responce from someone opening it. I'm not a big fan of this being leagal presencetence. In the past i attempted to collect a dept and it was a pain in the but, she changed her last name and adress, it took me six months to get my money. If she had decided to not quoperate i would still be strugling to get my money.
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First use of Facebook to serve legal documents
Facebook has been used for the first time to serve legal documents to defendants who could not be be located in the real world but who could be located on the web.
A Canberra, Australia, court ordered that a judgment be served to defendants via their Facebook page when they failed to show up for court and an address for them could not be located.
"Both myself and my colleague Jason Oliver have Facebook accounts, so we thought we could access that and see if we could find them," said attorney Mark McCormack.
The two co-defendants were listed as being friends in their Facebook profiles and their birth dates matched those of the defendants being sought, satisfying the court that these were the men.
Email and cell phone text messages have been used to serve legal notices as well.
good or bad?