Friday, May 1, 2015

Facebook is being used in NY to "serve" people notice of lawsuits.

It's not being used in Texas yet but here is an interesting article on what's happening in New York.

I am often appointed to find "missing spouses or parents:.  I always do a Facebook search.  I find many people on Facebook and other social media sites.  I also used "paid" searches not available to the general public. 

I recently completed an all day skip-tracing class. It was very informative. It's kind of scary how much information is available to bail bondsmen, repo people and private investigators on the internet. It is very hard to hide these days.

There are books written on how to "disappear". All the people that try to find missing people have read the books and, in fact, there are books written and classes taught on how to find people that are trying to "hide"!

It's almost impossible these days to "be off the grid". You are warned!


New York -
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Matthew Cooper said that the nurse (wife) can serve her elusive husband with divorce papers through a social networking site ‘Facebook’ via message. The court has taken this unusual step for the reasons that husband has been otherwise unresponsive to all other ways of communication with his wife. It is reported that the couple hails from Ghana and were married in 2009. The relationship soured after the husband broke his promise to hold a traditional Ghanaian ceremony.

Plaintiff attorney Andrew Spinnell has stated that they have tried all possible ways to contact plaintiff’s husband including hiring of a private detective as well but nothing worked out. Further, as per court filings, Husband has only been in contact with his wife on the phone and on Facebook. On one occasion, the Husband  has spoken to defendant over telephone informing her that he has no fixed address and no place of employment.

While allowing serving divorce papers through Facebook messages, Justice Cooper observed that “[The] post office has no forwarding address for him, there is no billing address linked to his prepaid cell phone, and the Department of Motor Vehicles has no record of him.” Consequently, the ruling reads that the transmittal of divorce papers shall be repeated by plaintiff’s attorney to defendant once a week for three consecutive weeks or until acknowledged and that this will be done by the attorney for Husband through Husband’s Facebook account.


Another case, It seems serving documents through social networking sites is getting more popular these days. In another incident, a New York City Family Court ruled in September 2014 that a man could serve his wife with notice pursuant to child support.

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