Posted on 03/21/2002 4:18:34 PM PST by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday became the first appellate court in the nation to allow attorneys to serve legal documents via e-mail.
The ruling in Rio Properties vs. Rio International Interlink hands a victory to the off-Strip Rio hotel in its battle with a Costa Rica-based online sports book. Attorneys for the Rio hotel had claimed the Costa Rican company infringed on the hotel's trademark by operating gambling Web sites at www.riosports.com and www.betrio.com.
But it also gives lawyers across the West a new way to bring defendants with no physical address into court.
"We acknowledge that we tread upon untrodden ground," U.S. Circuit Judge Stephen Trott wrote in the court of appeals opinion. "(But) 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."
Local legal experts say that reasoning could become increasingly prevalent in a wired world where commerce -- and commercial disputes -- frequently span international borders.
"This is an important decision, which, if it is followed by other courts outside the 9th Circuit, will make it easier for lawyers to find elusive defendants," said professor Ann McGinley, who teaches civil procedure at the William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV. "I think right now it will not be applied absent exceptional circumstances, but I think we are moving in the direction of service by e-mail."
Wednesday's case began in 1998, when the Rio found an ad for Rio Interlink's Web site, www.riosports.com, in the Nevada edition of the Daily Racing Form. Rio Interlink also ran radio ads in the Las Vegas area promoting its offshore betting service.
After the hotel complained, Rio Interlink shut down the site and replaced it with www.betrio.com. At that point, attorneys for the Rio hotel sued the Costa Rican company for trademark infringement.
According to the opinion, Rio International's Miami address actually belonged to another company, which wasn't authorized to accept service for Rio International. After a search of corporate listings in Costa Rica failed to locate a physical address for the company, attorneys for the Rio hotel asked U.S. District Judge Philip M. Pro to allow them to serve Rio International via e-mail.
There are ways to create fraudulent trails too ... that's what worries me.
You worried about a process server, perchance?
I disagree. Practically any teenage geek capable of tracking down proof that a given email reached its destination would be equally capable of faking said "proof," at least to the extent that the average law enforcement officer, attorney or juror wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
You worried about a process server, perchance?
The "What's the problem, unless you got something to hide?" argument rarely works well on FR.
How would they know if it made it to the INBOX without automaticly being filtered to the garbage bin as spam???
It's like claiming you threw those important documents in the trash because they were stuck between a catalog and a "YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY WON" mailer from Publisher's Clearinghouse.
The "teenage geek" would be limited to ASKING sysadmins for a trace report, rather than hacking in--not to mention that hacking in wouldn't exactly be considered legal.
I don't see this happening much now, but by the year 2020, it will be considered legal to serve papers via email with a public key signature and certification stamps from each server.
'Necessity' is the plea for every infringement of human liberty; it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. -- William Pitt
Your right about the 9th....was present when the court wanted to play games.....to serve wife they handed the papers to the husband.....who then took them to the person who served the papers and told them to serve her. The court considered her served in a location covered by the 9th district.
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