U.S. Courts Waver on Whether Complaints Can Be Served Via Facebook

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Showing just how entrenched social media has become, legal notices are now being delivered through untraditional channels, like Facebook and Twitter. While the law still favors the traditional physical handoff of court summons and complaint, social media sites are now being recognized in some states and outside the U.S. as acceptable alternatives.

Morrison & Foerster’s Socially Aware [PDF] August edition includes an interesting article on this trend and instances of when serving notice through social media works and when it does not and why.

When traditional means of delivery to a residence is not feasible, summons have appeared in local newspapers or posted as a public notice. Now it seems that social media is joining the ranks of these acceptable alternatives, providing certain steps are taken including:

• Authentication of the profile. If there is any doubt that the pages might have been fraudulently created then the use of social media to serve would not be acceptable in the eyes of the court. The biographical details listed in the profile must match the party being served.
• If there is any reason to believe the social media user may not actually see the complaint, or that the account is no longer active, then the use of social media would not be acceptable in the eyes of the court. Checking for recent photos, updates and posts can help confirm activity, as well as another way to ensure that the profile really does match the party being served.
• See if friends or contact lists correspond to known relationships with the party being served and if those listed can act as third-party corroboration that the person is in fact the person being served.

According to the Morrison & Foerster’s Socially Aware article author: “Notice may actually be more likely to reach the intended recipient if delivered through social media than if communicated through those more traditional means [newspaper, public notice, etc].” Even better, the author points out, is an ability to confirm electronically that a communication has been opened or received by the intended recipient.

The article notes that a local court in Minnesota permitted service of a petition for divorce by Facebook, finding that “compared to the ‘antiquated…and prohibitively expensive’ traditional means of publishing notifications in local newspapers, service through social media would be both cheaper and more likely to actually reach the party at issue.

As Facebook users climb to more than 900 million worldwide, the finding of the court will likely become a widely used practice in the near future, but for now it appears to vary from state to state.