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The Courts Government News Your Rights Online

Are You Being Served? Don't Open That Email! 316

Posted by timothy from the imagine-future-spam-subject-lines dept.
An unnamed reader writes: "A federal appeals court has ruled that legal documents can be served by email. Since the party had no physical address, the court ruled that email was a viable option. So, before you open that next email, you might want to consider if it's something you might want to avoid! And it wouldn't be spam..."
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Are You Being Served? Don't Open That Email! More

Are You Being Served? Don't Open That Email!

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  • Prove I opened it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Archfeld ( 6757 ) <treboreel@live.com> on Thursday March 21, 2002 @05:47PM (#3203440) Journal
    I use hotmail for a reason :)

    • Re:Prove I opened it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bmongar ( 230600 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @05:49PM (#3203456)
      If you use html views of a message they can prove you opened it by embeding a web-bug in the address. That is an image that loads remotely, if the image is loaded from that location you opened the mail.
      • I download all my "home" e-mails at night and read them on my laptop.. not online.

        Come get me now!

      • Re:Prove I opened it (Score:2, Insightful)

        by 56ker ( 566853 )
        Yes but this assumes people actually view HTML e-mails - if they view them by text as default this doesn't work.

      • Re:Prove I opened it (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Ooblek ( 544753 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @06:00PM (#3203575)
        It doesn't matter if you opened it or not really. After a while, they assume you are avoiding being served and just call it done. Too bad if you never knew about it. I believe there was a lawsuit that Art Bell had going against some dork that was accusing him of being a child molester. The guy was avoiding being served, so the deputy eventually concluded that he was illegally avoiding service.

        • Re:Prove I opened it (Score:3, Informative)

          by Alien54 ( 180860 )
          I remember that.

          What happened was that his son. artbell jr (or whatever) had been molested by a teacher [lvrj.com], who was sent away to jail [lasvegassun.com] for a very long time.

          The idiot [educate-yourself.org] had his own small time talk show on shortwave (I think) Someone had sent the idiot a rumor that had it all backwards, accusing the talk show host father Art Bell of peodophilia. Art Bell had been trying to keep it quiet to protect his son, and eventually came forward with the information on the air, when the rumors got to heavy, and he had to file a law suit. Needless to say, the father was not pleased, hired the best of lean and hungry lawyers, and had at the jerk.

          Now there are programs like Mailwasher [mailwasher.net] that let you erase and bounce email before you download it. Of course, Unix admins have been able to do this since the dawn of time.

      • All the Pine, Elm, and Mutt users are chuckling right now...

      • Re:Prove I opened it (Score:2, Interesting)

        by apg ( 66778 )
        That would be circumstantial evidence at best. The fact that your Web server recorded a request for a given resource -- even a moderately unique one (such as a URL crafted specifically for that email message) -- doesn't prove anything other than a request was made for that resource. There's nothing in your server logs that says the intended recipient opened the email message, or even, for that matter, that the email message was opened at all.

        • Good point (Score:3, Insightful)

          by mmol_6453 ( 231450 )
          A con artist (read telecom provider or spam mailer) could send you an email authorizing them to suspend your anit-slam rights, and then trigger the authentication themselves by just making the HTTP request from another computer.

          They'd have to prove that you, and only you, were capable of having knowledge or record of the authenticating URL. On the Internet, that means everything from certification that their software is bug-free and uncracked to certification that the packets weren't sniffed on the Internet to gaurantee that your employer doesn't archive your email as company policy. That reaches a point of impossibility after a while.

          This means there'll be more demand for public key encryption. They'll need my public key (and they can't give me a private key...it might be intercepted on the Internet) to prove that the request I send to them really comes from me. This would have to happen by me sending a response encoded with my private key.
      • It doesn't work for me. I always drop the connection before opening mail. I do this for two reasons.
        1, Stops mail viruses. If it tries to open a connection it gets deleted. I don't spread viruses.

        2, Stops advertiser tracking. If it tries to open a conneciton, it gets deleted. I want a mail advertiser to know most of their mail hit the bit bucket unseen.

        Sending anythng with a bug or fetch anything ensures I don't see it.

        They may say I received it, and I can say it was auto-deleted if it met any of these spam/virus modes of operation.
      • actually its proof someone or some program, opened it.

      • No... that proves that someone with access to your machine/account opened it... is that really enough?

      • If you use html views of a message they can prove you opened it by embeding a web-bug in the address.

        Sounds like yet another reason to block HTML email.

      • Re:Prove I opened it (Score:2, Interesting)

        by telstar ( 236404 )
        Now prove it wasn't my 5 year old nephew that accidentally switched over to Outlook while playing "Grover Learns to Read".
    • ... you accessed the page the email was on...

      there again, prove the hotmail account is mine! i have several bogus accounts...
    • or you can do what I do:
      Use Pine to check your emails...
      or another text-based email client...:-)

  • Enlarge your penis - GUARANTEED! (Score:4, Funny)

    by mossmann ( 25539 ) <mike@ossmann.com> on Thursday March 21, 2002 @05:51PM (#3203479) Homepage
    You've been served.

    • or worse... (Score:4, Funny)

      by theConstruct ( 210936 ) <theConstruct@@@yahoo...com> on Thursday March 21, 2002 @06:23PM (#3203754)
      Enlarge your subpoenas - GUARANTEED!

    • This actually raises the point of the interaction between spam [slashdot.org] and service via email.

      I can actually understand it in this case, where there wasn't an obvious alternative to email service -- and it actually makes sense in the context of the BC rules of court (which I've read) which allows a judge to OK non-standard methods of service, in a specific case where traditional methods have been proven non-fruitful.

      This decision does not appear to approve email service as a general method. It does, however, mean that if you're playing electronic hide-and-seek with someone who is trying to sue you, you may get 'tagged' by email.

      Where I worry about it as a general solution is where someone serves me by email with something that looks like spam (or where spammers catch on to email service, and start to use 'service' envelopes to force people to read their stuff (on pain of default judgement if it was a real notice)).
      I would then be stuck between the rock of having to read every piece of spam that comes through my mailbox, and the hard place of missing a notice of lawsuit that the RIAA is suing me for $1,000,000 because I had a DECSS link [bcgreen.com] on my web page.

  • If they request a return reciept, just click "no" to giving them one (requires little configuration).

    Welp, that solves that problem.

  • Yucky (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 68030 ( 215387 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @05:51PM (#3203485) Homepage
    Guess it's time to get an email address on a non-US server. They can't send a US court jury duty
    request to a non-us email address, can they?

    • They can't send a US court jury duty request to a non-us email address, can they?

      No. Then again, this is an article about being served as a defendant in court, not about being called for jury duty.

      Can the U.S. serve someone outside the U.S.? Usually - it has treaties with most other nations exchanging that privilege. Granted, if you had a server in, say, Iraq, you'd probably be out of their jurisdiction. Then again, try finding a mail server in Iraq where locals won't dig up the cable and sell it for the copper.

      • Re:Yucky (Score:3, Insightful)

        by mpe ( 36238 )
        Can the U.S. serve someone outside the U.S.? Usually - it has treaties with most other nations exchanging that privilege. Granted, if you had a server in, say, Iraq, you'd probably be out of their jurisdiction.

        When did US courts start taking much notice of the concept of "out of jurisdiction?

        Then again, try finding a mail server in Iraq where locals won't dig up the cable and sell it for the copper.

        Any Iraqi embassy is considered to be "in Iraq". Embassys are typically in urban areas where paved surfaces and police tend to discourage digging up telephone cables.
  • If you order something online, you have a fixed period (usually 7 days) within which you are allowed to change your mind and cancel your order. This cancellation can take place by postal mail, telephone, or by email "to the last known address" of the merchant.

  • um ... whois ? (Score:3, Informative)

    by legLess ( 127550 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @05:52PM (#3203495) Journal
    Sheesh - how hard can it be? They're both registered in bloody Las Vegas already ...

    Harrah's Entertainment, Inc (RIOSPORTS3-DOM)
    1023 Cherry Road
    Memphis, TN 38117
    US

    Domain Name: RIOSPORTS.COM

    Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
    Wilkins, Bobby (BW1169) hwilkins@HARRAHS.COM
    Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
    1023 Cherry Rd
    Memphis, TN 38117-5423
    (901) 537-3785 (FAX) (901) 820-2570
    Billing Contact:
    Howard, Anika (AHU21) anhoward@HARRAHS.COM
    Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
    One Harrah's Court
    Las Vegas, NV 89193-8905
    702-407-6456 (FAX) 702-407-6500

    Record last updated on 14-Jan-2002.
    Record expires on 23-Feb-2004.
    Record created on 23-Feb-2001.
    Database last updated on 21-Mar-2002 02:57:00 EST.

    Domain servers in listed order:

    NS1.HARRAHS.COM 12.104.204.36
    NS2.HARRAHS.COM 12.104.204.38

    Registrant:
    Harrah's Entertainment, Inc (BETRIO2-DOM)
    1023 Cherry Road
    Memphis, TN 38117
    US

    Domain Name: BETRIO.COM

    Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
    Wilkins, Bobby (BW1169) hwilkins@HARRAHS.COM
    Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
    1023 Cherry Rd
    Memphis, TN 38117-5423
    (901) 537-3785 (FAX) (901) 820-2570
    Billing Contact:
    Howard, Anika (AHU21) anhoward@HARRAHS.COM
    Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
    One Harrah's Court
    Las Vegas, NV 89193-8905
    702-407-6456 (FAX) 702-407-6500

    Record last updated on 14-Jan-2002.
    Record expires on 23-Feb-2004.
    Record created on 23-Feb-2001.
    Database last updated on 21-Mar-2002 02:57:00 EST.

    Domain servers in listed order:

    NS1.HARRAHS.COM 12.104.204.36
    NS2.HARRAHS.COM 12.104.204.38

    • Re:um ... whois ? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cybermage ( 112274 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @06:18PM (#3203716) Homepage Journal
      Well, nice try. I'd bet (pun intended) that the information from whois, before Harrah's took the domains, was probably more obtuse.

      Harrah's operates the Rio; they probably took over the domains as part of the story.

      My first thought was the same as yours, but the information seems to reflect the results of Harrah's legal actions.

      Of course, even if the whois information isn't accurate, the money going to the sites had to go somewhere. Follow the money.

  • Registerred Email (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ksw2 ( 520093 ) <[obeyeater] [at] [gmail.com]> on Thursday March 21, 2002 @05:53PM (#3203506) Homepage
    Until you can confirm the receipt beyond a reasonable doubt, I don't think this will become a widespread practice. How hard is it to forge a bounced message?

    Anyway, undoubtedly if you do have a physical address, it will be used instead. The case mentioned in the article seems to be an isolated one.

  • Read carefully - "hide-and-seek" comment (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Seth Finkelstein ( 90154 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @05:53PM (#3203509) Homepage Journal
    "When faced with an international e-business scofflaw playing hide-and-seek with the federal court, e-mail may be the only means of effecting service of process," the court said. "We acknowledge that we tread upon untrodden ground."
    I think the court is NOT saying that it will allow service by e-mail as a routine matter. But in cases where the party is trying to claim to be both available (by e-mail) and NOT available (physically), the court will allow the party's obvious prefered method of being reached :-)

    Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

    • where the party is trying to claim to be both available (by e-mail) and NOT available (physically)

      Agreed, and that's the weird thing -- since the whois [slashdot.org] shows that Harrah's owns the site, which is a perfectly accessible land based casino.

      You can bet that they aren't web hosting...they've probably just created a shell company to try and gain more the of the market share from Rio.

      I guess I'm just surprised that they haven't tried to go through Harrah's...one would think there would have to be some linkage to a 'physical' company.

      • You can bet that they aren't web hosting...they've probably just created a shell company to try and gain more the of the market share from Rio.

        I guess I'm just surprised that they haven't tried to go through Harrah's...one would think there would have to be some linkage to a 'physical' company.

        Harrah's operates the Rio. The whois records probably reflect the result of the legal action.

    • But (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Catbeller ( 118204 )
      But the decision opened the door.

      Picture this: the church of Scientology decides to nail you, for whatever reason.

      They set up a court case, timing the service of process for some time you are not available, and would be unaware of the matter.

      After not finding you in person, they serve up an e-summons to an email account you don't use much. Stipulated in the summons: if you don't respond, you automatically lose your case.

      After a set period of time, you are informed that you have lost your house, your car, and maybe even your job, depending on many fake charges they managed to pile on you, because the judge automatically ruled you guilty of whatever BS they thought up.

      My family, long ago, lost a civil case because the bailiff mispronounced our last name so badly that we didn't approach the judge. The plaintiff, although he knew we were there, swifty told the judge we were absent, and we lost the case by default.

      Wonderful, ain't it?
  • Opening email,
    I realize she found me,
    Child support sucks ass.
  • If you see this:

    From: Judge133838201@courtcentral.cc
    +++ L@@K +++ YOU HAVE BEEN SERVED _,.'``'-.,_,.-'``'-.,_,.->> THIS IMPORANT SUBPOENA!!!!!

    Just delete it. Turn off your preview pane, too.

  • Most of us have physical addresses, so this doesn't matter to the rest of us.

    So, lets make the story more shrill, lets just infer that opening any email might be a binding legal document.

    Sheesh!

    It's a novel legal argument, that certianly has some problems, but generally used it's not, and most certainly won't become widely used either.

    How about leaving sensationalism to the Weekly World News, the Sun or the National Inquirer, and just post stories without the whining "the sky is falling" prose?!

    Cheers!
    • And if email is legally binding, then a post to /. probably is, too...

      BY FOLLOWING THE LINK THAT LEADS TO THIS POST, YOU AGREE TO ABSURD TERMS OF MY CHOOSING.

      And am I the only one who thinks it's funny that the color scheme for this story is yellow?
    • How about leaving sensationalism to the Weekly World News, the Sun or the National Inquirer, and just post stories without the whining "the sky is falling" prose?!

      I just want to add that, even though it is the case that the text in question was written by "an unnamed reader", it was timothy who copied and posted it onto the front page.

      I think the editors should do a lot more editing of the submissions. Especially now that they're asking for money to do this job.

  • Cool!!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Romancer ( 19668 ) <romancer AT deathsdoor DOT com> on Thursday March 21, 2002 @05:57PM (#3203546) Journal

    So I can legally send a notice to a spamming company that serves as legal notification if they do not list a phone number or physical address, and it will be backed by this precident.

    I love it when a ruling can affect something intelligent, especially when the ruling itself isn't that smart.

  • I can see the fakes flying already. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by IPFreely ( 47576 ) <mark@mwiley.org> on Thursday March 21, 2002 @05:57PM (#3203548) Homepage Journal
    So someone starts sending fake summons via email with faked return addresses. How do you know what's real in E-mail.

    Now hundreds of people are hiring lawyers and showing up in court on dates they were never expected for summons that were never issues.

    There are reasons why papers must be served in person; so everyone on both sides knows it happened for real. Summons by regular mail is bad enough.

    • One thing to consider:

      Headers never lie.

      Now obviously "average computer users" would not be expected to interpret their e-mail's header to decide for themselves if the e-mail is authentic or not but I have thought of one possible solution.

      The government could set up some sort of automated authenticity system. You receive an e-mail claiming to be from the U.S gov., you forward that e-mail to a designated U.S gov. address and upon being received by the server it parses the headers and sends a reply confirming it's authenticity.

      Pretty much the same idea with online sign-ups requesting a reply to confirm that you did actually intend to sign-up.

      Just a thought.

      --
      Garett
      • Headers never lie.

        These are government boxes.... With the exception of the hard core secured stuff, most of these boxes are not known for 1337 security... It would be fair to assume you could find a .gov spam relay wide open.

        As far as checking, when was the last time you actually checked a digital cert to see if it was revoked? Joe Six-Pack keeps trying to send me a "security update" from microsoft.... If they miss that one, I don't have high hopes for checking an email.
  • I am not a lawyer, but take a look at the following exception to Service Of Process rules [lectlaw.com]
    * Personal service--When the person served is physically handed court papers notifying her that she has been sued, she is said to have been personally served. With almost all lawsuits, the complaint and summons must be personally served unless the defendant agrees to accept service. If the defendant does not agree to accept service and is not personally served, the court cannot take any action in the case, unless the plaintiff can show that personal service was impossible.

    Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

  • during the initial Bernie Shifman exchange several months ago, he asked for someone's address for legal contact. Anyone else catch what I'm fearing....?
  • The Good Thing is that an email address with attached legal considerations brings more power and greater legal definition to the community of internet users. In the way ButterFlyWings and StrangeAttractors this could impact Bad Things like Spam. The courts are really just coming up to scratch with the burgeoning legal hassels of the internet. As a Canadian I would think in a country like America with a very proactive judiciary this could ultimately force a more stanardized set of laws perhaps in favour of the enduser. Either way these issues will make their way into the courts and call for more legislation. Ah for the days of the WildWest.
  • I see a couple of problem-

    The act of a mail user agent receiving the email, does not equate to the intended individual receiving it. Nor does an unauthenticated user. The only way this makes sense is if the intended recipient uses some form of biometric authentication.

    I am making an assumption that the entity in question is in fact a human and not a virtual entity. As long as we are dealing with people, we should maintain the same high level of bioauthentication that we use today. Handing a subpoena to the identified individual relys on human based bioauthentication. That has been the legal standard. Not being able to find the person has not been an excuse to serve a subpoena without this level of bioauthentication. I don't believe that it is permissable to deliver a subpoena via the telephone.

    I'm still waiting for a bioauthentication scheme as ubiquitous as human recognition...

    -tpg
    • Subponea's don't have to be mailed certified, in fact if you have ever filled out the paperwork you are given many options:

      - 1st class mail
      - Certified mail
      - Public notification (in newspaper)
      - etc.

      The only reason certified is the poision of choice is so you have recourse when someone says they didn't get the subponea. You have proof that they did and will usually win by default.
    • Depending on how anal they get, they could go to your ISP and demand the logs of your access into your POP account.

      There are cases where this may not be practical, but in most cases you'll be able to tell if the message was ever retrieved or not.

      Certainly by saying "You automatically lose if you don't acknowledge..." would be enough to get most mail dodgers interested in recieving it.
      • My ISP logs must look mighty strange to a lawyer, especially where my script looks to see if I have mail from a particular address and downloads all of it, or downloads all mail and forwards all that contains my full name, etc.

        The only way that this would work is if the recipient actually admitted receiving it (or maybe even if they told someone that they did.)

        Then again, IANAL (BIWTOT)
  • ... online restraining orders?
    Food for thought... "dont come within 2 subnets of this server under penalty of law"
    • Domains being handed over because they contain a city name in them?? I fail to see how "rio" constitutes a trademark. Will they be suing Duran-Duran too??

      Considering they will not let papers be served by normal first-class mail should preclude the e-mail being binding. E-mail has a much better chance of being faked, modified, and otherwise abused without leaving obvious traces.

      ~Hammy
  • Just send out a TEX formatted letter to 100 people informing each person that you are taking them to court. Maybe 2 people will be able to read the letter and show up to defent themselves, 10 may write back to tell you they coun't read the attachment, but the rest are all yours !!!

  • What format? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by treat ( 84622 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @06:04PM (#3203607)
    An important aspect that has been as of yet unmentioned, is what format were these documents sent in? If they were sent in a proprietary format, is the recipient required by law to purchase software to decode the document?
    • The Adobe PDF format seems to be widely accepted by the legal community- many of the rulings that have been posted on slashdot were available in only .pdf format.

      Considering that adobe offers a free PDF reader for every relevant operating system- including linux- your point is moot. No purchase is required, anyone with the connection to receive email can download a reader
    • If I send you a subpoena (or any other legal notice) in aramaic, do you have to hire a translator, or are you just not responsible for the contents?

      If there is a free reader, you have no arguement, and if not then my above arguement should hold.

  • Auto responders? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mjh ( 57755 ) <mark@ho[ ]lan.com ['rnc' in gap]> on Thursday March 21, 2002 @06:04PM (#3203611) Homepage Journal
    Hmm... I wonder what the implications of something like this are on auto responders. I use TMDA [sf.net] to autmotically respond to any emails that I get from people that I don't know. I wonder if an auto response constitutes being served.

    Hmmm...
  • "U.S. District Judge Philip M. Pro had allowed the Las Vegas business to use e-mail to serve legal documents because no physical address could be found."

    As no physical address was available, this seems like a not so absurd option. However, what if they had a mailing address and the folks just did not want to be bothered to walk over and serve the docs in person? What are the conditions under which email is appropriate?

  • If you don't receive a bounce, is that proof that the defendant was served? If so, then you may as well just toss the documents out the window and hope the breeze carries them to their destination. If they aren't returned to you by Divine Providence, then you can assume the defendant was served.

    There has been enough erosion of due process already. This is tantamount to giving plaintiffs a license to manufacture summary judgements. If the defendant doesn't show because he was never served, then a summary judgement is the likely outcome. The plaintiffs have every incentive to take this ball and run with it, and no incentive to refrain.

    The flipside of course, is that this will streamline the docket quite a bit.

  • Prove it was *me* (Score:2, Informative)

    by meckhert ( 186609 )
    So lets assume that somehow they can prove that the message was actually opened and viewed. How does this mean that it was actually *me* that read it? Is there really anyway to consistenly prove that it was in fact me that read the message, and not my kid brother or some dude that hacked my account? It seems like it would be too easy to sniff the password to an email account, send a summons to it and view it. So the question is, how can they prove that the person who i was intended for is actually the one that opened it? I see how common sense would say this is a dumb question, but legally this seems like it would pose a very interesting dilemna.
  • Sounds like a case for procmail, some keyword scans of the body, /dev/null for delivery, and a nice EXITCODE=67 status! :-)
  • Having Legal documents "served" over the Internet is a "Bad Thing" because of several problems ...

    1) In the "real world", you can serve legal papers by a couple of methods. Registered (return receipt) mail (or courier), local county Sheriff, an officer of the court. This provides that the person getting the papers is actually the person that should be getting the papers. On the Internet, the person reading the email may not necessarily be the person to contact for the serving of documents.

    2) E-Mail (and its address) can be faked. Though in the "real world" it can as well, it's not as easy.

    3) E-Mail can be intercepted and modified. This isn't even that tricky to do ... all you need is access to a mail server.

    I could go on for a while here ... but let me just say that because the courts said that it can be done, doesn't mean that it should.

    #include <std\disclaimers.h>

  • X-Subpoena-Checker-Version: SubpoenaAssassin 0.15

    X-Subpoena-Report: 9.9 hits, 6 required;
    * 1.1 -- BODY: Refers to you as 'the first party'
    * 4.5 -- BODY: Contains many words like 'whereas' and 'aforementioned'
    * 2.0 -- BODY: Text is in ALL CAPS and poorly formatted
    * 1.1 -- BODY: Includes a link to a reputable law firm
    * 1.2 -- OTHER: Looking through your files, and it appears you've been BAD

  • Not all "papers" served are "bad" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Glove d'OJ ( 227281 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @06:19PM (#3203726) Homepage
    Not everything for which you may be summoned to court is a bad thing. My brother serves papers for various lawyers in NY, and every so often while visiting, I would go with him if he had a tricky paper to serve. On several occasions, the papers were "come to court and collect your inheiritance" type papers, where the people actually welcomed him in and offered food+drink.

    Were the legal system to start contemplating e-Service of paperwork, these "warmfuzzy" services could be first served electronically, as their degree of repudiation ("I never got served") would be extremely low.

  • Isnt' this a Good Thing? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lysurgon ( 126252 ) <joshk AT outlandishjosh DOT com> on Thursday March 21, 2002 @06:19PM (#3203728) Homepage Journal
    I'm curious why so many posters seem to think this is a Really Bad Thing, or a Really Stupid Thing. Are we all just eager to stay one step ahead of the law?

    I for one think this is a Very Good Thing.

    1) It's a big step toward legitimizing legal transactions online.This is something that needs to occur for the internet revolution to relaly take hold. The ability for people to make binding agreements virtually would usher in the next generation of e-business. Got an e-summons? Get an e-lawyer! If you can legally serve someone with an email, how long before you can represent someone online?

    2) Of course, there are a lot of security issues to work though, but that's good to. Why? Jobs for geeks.

    3) They're going to be able to serve a process against this scam artist. That's always nice.

    Truth is, if you're actually being served a process, either someone bad is after you or you've done something wrong, like skip out on child support. Making virtual process serving possible doesn't make it easier to file lawsuits, it just makes it easier to let people know about them.

    • Here's why... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Da VinMan ( 7669 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @06:53PM (#3203926)
      It's a bad/stupid thing (depending on your perspective) because this ruling is effective with TODAY'S technology. That means that there won't necessarily be any evidence that the notice was really served, that it was secure, etc. Do you really trust POP/IMAP/HTTP enough for this purpose? Do you really? This probably has implications for contracts too. I would be very careful about this, or you'll get what you wish for (example below).

      You: "Your honor, I am not bound by this contract because this email did not come from me. It was forged."

      The judge: "Prove it."

      You: [Blank stare.]

      It would be pretty easy to drum up a whole stack of lawsuits based on forged mail. Hell, you could fake contracts of all sorts and pretend people owe you something in the hopes that they'll pay you something just to go away and not have to show up in court.

      I doubt any self-respecting law firm is going to use this as their primary means of serving papers anyway, despite the ruling.

      Also, think of this: if the party in question is so elusive that you are totally unable to serve them in person, then what real means of enforcement do you have in dragging them to court? So maybe you can get their site shut down? What if they're not the hosting company? What redress really occurred then?

      No sir, I don't like it. Between this and e-voting, I smell real trouble.
  • Just move your email to a server in Michigan. When you get mail you don't want, claim that it goes against the 1979 Michigan Computer Crime Act because someone used a computer to write information to your computer which can quantify some cost in space and processing. Have them arrested for attempting to serve you.

  • fortunatly, I was able to break the alien language just in time to relize it was a cook book.

  • Okay. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mindstrm ( 20013 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @06:43PM (#3203860)
    Claimant has a valid trademark dispute
    Defendant is not reachable, most likely on purpose
    Defendant does have an email address

    So you send the mail as a last ditch effort
    and then hold a trial in absentia.

    How is that not fair?

  • I'm thinking of what happens when the recipient of the e-mail summons has a spam filter in place which flags it as being spam? I could well imagine a case where a summons would list explicit samples of the material for which the recipient is charged, and these samples could trigger the user's and/or ISPs spam filter. Consider the bold text in this example.


    You are hereby summoned to appear (insert legalese here) because you have been accused of engaging in a scheme which promises "clients" could make money fast and/or engage in on-line gambling in conflict with the laws of the United States of America.

    The court could truthfully state the summons was sent. The "recipient" could truthfully claim s/he never received it.
    I'm NOT claiming this would be a valid way to claim non-receipt of the summons; only that this is an entirely possible scenario.

    Worse, still, is someone attempting an [im]practical joke on an unsuspecting user while they are away from their computer -- set up private spam filters in their e-mail program to delete e-mail containing: ("Federal" OR "State") AND "court".

    With April 1st approaching, I suspect this has given a number of people some interesting ideas for April Fool's Jokes. ;^)

  • The defendant never said he never got the documents. In fact, his lawyer obviously did get the documents somehow.

    He was 1) actually notified, 2) actually represented, and 3) trying to hide behind some hypertechnical fig leaf. He was trying to tell the courts that because he hadn't been physically whacked with rolled up piece of ink-on-dead-tree, that the courts were powerless.

    Would he have been happier losing the domain name because the complaint was published in the Miami Herald or the like? Good grief. He was a loser messing with everyone who got whacked. Looks good to me.
  • What's the status of logging on POP servers? As best I know there isn't any, hence the only "proof" that you got the email would be the combination of the SMTP logs showing the mail was received at your ISP, and the fact the mail wasn't on disk any more.

    Anyway, could always "steam the letter open" using POP's TOP command.

    Dave

  • Not a Surprise - Read the Rules (Score:5, Informative)

    by davidebsmith ( 306645 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @06:57PM (#3203952)
    This is not a surprise if you actually read the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. FRCP 4 (f) [cornell.edu] says (in relevant part) (italics added):

    Unless otherwise provided by federal law, service upon an individual from whom a waiver has not been obtained and filed ... may be effected in a place not within any judicial district of the United States:

    (1) by any internationally agreed means reasonably calculated to give notice, such as those means authorized by the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents; or

    (2) if there is no internationally agreed means of service or the applicable international agreement allows other means of service, provided that service is reasonably calculated to give notice:

    (A) in the manner prescribed by the law of the foreign country for service in that country ...
    ...
    (C) unless prohibited by the law of the foreign country, by

    (i) delivery to the individual personally of a copy of the summons and the complaint; or

    (ii) any form of mail requiring a signed receipt, to be addressed and dispatched by the clerk of the court to the party to be served; or

    (3) by other means not prohibited by international agreement as may be directed by the court.

    Plus, under FRCP 4 (d) (2) (b) the defendant has a duty to avoid costs of service if a waiver of service is requested "through first-class mail or other relaible means."

    The touchstone of whether service of process comports with due process is whether it is a method reasonably calculated to give notice under the circumstances. Our office regularly files cases requesting emergency authorization to demolish buildings that are in an imminently dangerous and hazardous condition and we provide notice by fax or by leaving messages on voice mail or by posting a notice on the door of the building. Under the circumstances that someone may be killed by a falling building if something is not done quickly, that is always sufficient notice under the circumstances.

    In this case, the defendants were in a foreign country, at a concealed address, and the only known method of providing notice was via e-mail. Under many state laws, service by publication (those little ads in the back of the newspaper) is effective and constitutional. Certainly service via e-mail to the address provided by the defendant is more reasonably calculated to give notice than publication in the Law Bulletin would be.

    This is yet another case of somebody seeing a high-tech buzzword and thinking it's hot news when it's really something that people have been doing for years.
  • I can just imagine companies that sit there all day mass mailing anyone with a trademark remotely similar to their own and threatening them with legal action. Or how about the RIAA mass mailing threats of legal action against every mp3 using person they can find on the net?

  • M$ Outbreak preview? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by PotatoHead ( 12771 )
    So the message is HTML, and contains a web bug to track the opening of the mail.

    So what if someone has their preview pane turned on. The bug gets triggered, but they are not there.

    What happens to the burden of proof in this case? Does it remain with entity doing the serving, or does it fall on the the entity being served?

  • The return of MS BOB (Score:4, Funny)

    by prizzznecious ( 551920 ) <hwky@fre[ ]ell.org ['esh' in gap]> on Thursday March 21, 2002 @07:19PM (#3204064) Homepage
    "It looks like you are frantically trying to erase the record of your having been electronically served papers. Would you like help with that?"

  • I can here it now... (Score:4, Funny)

    by leinerj ( 115797 ) <leinerj@@@gmail...com> on Thursday March 21, 2002 @07:30PM (#3204104) Homepage
    The new AOL email notification!
    "You have subpoena"
  • Am I the only one who wants to see a summons sent to the Battle Creek, Michigan city servers... using a technically correct but problematic header? (I would like to the earlier /. article on ORBZ here, but it seems to have disappeared.)

    I would love to see them try to threaten a Federal Court with a felony trespass charge because they're exercising their own sovereign rights to summon parties before the court. My money is on the federal courts in this case.

  • You Don't Have to Read a Subpoena to be Served (Score:5, Informative)

    by MoNickels ( 1700 ) on Thursday March 21, 2002 @07:33PM (#3204121) Homepage
    I am not a lawyer, but my father delivers subpoenas for a living to men who have not paid child support. I asked him in the past about people refusing to accept subpoenas when he hands them to them. He explained that telling the party of the subpoena is sufficient for the subpoena to be served, and all that is required is that he a) notify them of the subpoena, and b) make it available to them. Refusing to accept the subpoena, not reading it, dropping it, ripping it up, or even claiming you aren't the person the subpoena is supposed to go to, do *nothing* to cancel the fact that the process server has, in fact, found you and given you sufficient notice of the legal document. In fact, a process server can simply used the scattershot method: deliver subpoenas to your home, your work, your gym, your parents' home, your girlfriend's house, your past addresses, everywhere, and in most cases it is sufficient to shove it in the mail slot, leave it in the mailbox, put it inside the screen door, hand it to another family member or household resident, put it under a windshield wiper, etc. Such a subpoena is considered served. You have been given sufficient notice. The court would prefer you pay attention to that notice, but it's your loss if you don't. So claiming you didn't get or didn't read an email message which you did indeed receive is likely an insufficient argument in the eyes of the court, particularly if there's strong evidence that you do, in fact, use the email address in question.

    I should add that contrary to what you might think, most of the people who are served subpoenas are apologetic and civil, even a little bashful about having to have someone official notify them of a legal matter related to their own mistakes.
    • $12 [cowlitz.wa.us] if done by the govmn't (but I suspect that this is for simpler cases)

      Otherwise, $50 to a couple hundred dollars [magnuminv.com] depending on the difficulty of the case (at $50/hr surveillance!).

      A friend of mine helped out a guy who was getting screwed for child support payments. Basically, his ex-wife was living off of the child support payments (and I think remarried) and not giving a dime to her at-college kids. So, he paid the kids directly, too. To get his payments re-evaluated, he needed to serve his ex-wife with papers. He wasn't allowed to do it himself... he needed a third party to do it. He hired a firm to do it, and they did... but she kept lying under oath that she never received the papers and the judge kept letting her delay. Why the judge didn't witness the supoena right there in court, I don't know. Anyway, after many attempts, the ex-husband was running out of money. My friend agreed to do the delivery. They knew where she went to church, dressed up in thier sunday best, and followed her. Aparently the rule they had to follow was that the documents had to touch her person -- leaving at her doorstep wasn't good enough. And this lady was smart (dumb?) enough to literally run away everytime she thought she was going to be subpoened. But, she didn't know my friend, and when they handed her the package in the middle of the church (a huge cathederal, and just after the service), her shriek echoed through the building. She tossed it up in the air and ran out. As paritioners filed out, they had to step around the package on the floor- with her full name in big red letters. Plenty of witnesses, hopefully. A videocamera would have been more effective, but this was back in the day when they were bigger. It's amazing what denial some people can get into thinking they can avoid subpoenas...
  • ... but good luck collecting a judgement if you can't locate assets or the people who own them.

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