U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Com’n v. Rubio, 2012 WL 3614360 (S.D.Fla., August 21, 2012)
The government filed a civil suit against defendant for violation of the federal Commodity Exchange Act and related regulations. Try as it may, the government could not successfully serve the complaint and summons by traditional means. So the government asked the court for leave to file the papers via defendant’s Yahoo email account. The court granted the motion.
During an earlier state investigation, defendand had provided a Yahoo email address while testifying under oath. The government claimed that it had sent several messages to the same account, each time getting a confirmation receipt indicating the message had been read on a Blackberry using the Digicel network. The evidence in the record showed that Digicel is a provider of network services in the Caribbean, Central and South America.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 4(f)(3) authorizes a court to order an alternate method for service to be effected upon defendants located outside the United States, provided that such service (1) is not prohibited by international agreement and (2) is reasonably calculated to give notice to the defendant consistent with its constitutional due process rights.
In evaluating whether email service in this case would run afoul of international law, the court found that the Hague Convention did not apply because defendant’s precise location was not known — the only information in the record was that he was in the Caribbean, Central or South America. The Inter-American Convention on Letters Rogatory did not prohibit email service in this case, as that Convention would not necessarily preclude service by means outside the scope of its terms.
The court found that email service was also reasonably calculated to give notice to defendant, based on the facts in the record. Here, the government showed that the still-active Yahoo email address about which defendant swore under oath was reasonably calculated to give notice of the action against him and an opportunity to respond.
See also:
Federal court permits service of process on Australian defendants by e-mail
Service of process by e-mail allowed for foreign defendants
Court rejects request for permission to serve process by e-mail
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