Having Trouble Serving a Summons? Take Out an Ad

[WSJ Law Blog]

A federal judge said Tuesday the Securities and Exchange Commission can serve a summons to four former executives of Siemens AG in Germany by publishing the summons in the International Herald Tribune.

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[Lexus]

As per The Hague Convention on the Service of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents, requires member states to serve summons in accordance with their own laws or the specific requests of the server. It also permits the governments of nations under the agreement to refuse service of summons on the grounds of the illegality of the service of that process under that nation's own laws. A nation refusing to serve a summons, however, must state its refusal to the party requesting the service as well as the grounds for the refusal

[Friend In Court]

Service of summons by publication is allowable in many countries. When a party cannot be found, whereabouts unknown, then publishing notice of in the legal section of a newspaper for a prescribed number of times is allowable.

When people dodge service of summons, some laws and court rules allow posting on their residence, sending by certified and regular mail (if they do not pick up the certified, it will be presumed they got it by regular mail). And substitute service on someone else who resides in the household.

Dodging service just delays the inevitable and gets one off on the wrong foot with the court.