One of the issues in the recent Indiana case of Munster v. Groce was whether the plaintiff had exercised due diligence in locating the missing defendant. In concluding that the plaintiff hadn’t done his part, the court noted that the plaintiff had neither conducted a public records search nor hired a skip-trace service.
Moreover (and perhaps more shockingly), the plaintiff hadn’t even done a Google search. The court seemed to chastise this failure: “[W]e discovered, upon entering “Joe Groce Indiana” into the Google search engine, an address for Groce that differed from either address used in this case, as well as an apparent obituary for Groce’s mother that listed numerous surviving relatives who might have known his whereabouts.”
Munster v. Groce, — N.E.2d —-, 2005 WL 1364662, at n. 3 (Ind.App., June 8, 2005).