Williams-Sonoma Inc. v. Friendfinder Inc., No. 06-6572, 2007 WL 1140639 (N.D.Cal. April 17, 2007).

Williams-Sonoma, the well-known purveyor of kitchen and other household goods, and owner of the POTTERY BARN trademark, filed suit against a number of defendants, seeking ot prevent those defendants from using the POTTERY BARN mark in meta tags and in HTML on certain sexually-explicit websites. Many of the defendants were foreign, and a number of them listed incorrect contact information, which foiled Williams-Sonoma’s attempts to serve process in the traditional manner.

Undaunted, Williams-Sonoma asked the court for an order authorizing it to serve process in the manner in which Williams-Sonoma had already been able to communicate with the defendants – by e-mail. The court granted the request.

To determine whether service of process by e-mail was proper, the court looked at some of the more interstitial parts of Fed. R. Civ. P. 4, which deals with service of process. Rule 4(h) says that foreign businesses may be served in the same manner as individuals not within any judicial district of the United States. Rule 4(f) provides the procedure for that, and allows service “by other means not prohibited by international agreement as directed by the court.”

The court determined that the circumstances of the case warranted service by alternative means. Nodding to Rio Properties, Inc. v. Rio Intern. Interlink, 284 F.3d 1007 (9th Cir. 2002), the court found that Williams-Sonoma had established that e-mail was an effective means of communication with the defendants, and that messages sent to the defendants would serve the purposes of notifying them of the pending litigation. Moreover, there was no indication that service in that manner would contravene any international agreement.

Service of process by e-mail allowed where traditional methods “impracticable.”

Plaintiffs Tishman and Wilkinson filed a lawsuit against defendant Pine, but had difficulty serving Pine with the summons. The plaintiffs tried the conventional methods of service under New York law, such as personal delivery. They even tried the “nailing and mailing” method by affixing a copy of the summons to the door of Pine’s residence, then sending a copy in the mail.

Tishman and Wilkinson had information, however, that led them to believe Pine was out of the country. Knowing this, they wanted to be sure that service was properly effected. Accordingly, they petitioned the court for permission to serve Pine by e-mail, pursuant to N.Y. C.P.L.R. §308(5), which allows service by such manner as the court directs, when the more conventional methods are “impracticable.”

The court allowed service of the summons to an e-mail address Pine had used in a classified ad listing his house for sale. The court held that given the uncertainty about the success of the attempted “nailing and mailing” effort, and the fact that the Pine’s attorneys wouldn’t give a clear answer as to where Pine was living, alternative service by e-mail was appropriate.

Tishman v. The Associated Press, (Slip Op.) 2005 WL 288369 (S.D.N.Y. February 6, 2006).

A recent case from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia addresses the novel question of when a plaintiff can obtain service of process over a defendant in another country by e-mail.

Plaintiff Williams sued numerous defendants whom she alleged conspired to defame her. Three of the defendants were residents of Australia, and Williams’s efforts of obtaining service by traditional means were unsuccessful. She petitioned the court to allow her to obtain service by alternate means, including e-mail, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(f)(3). Because Williams had demonstrated her good faith efforts to serve the Australian defendants by traditional means, and because her proposed efforts of service through e-mail were reasonable, the court granted the motion.

The court went through a two-step process to determine that service of process by e-mail would be proper. First, it concluded that given the “particularities and necessities” presented from the near impossibility of serving the evasive defendants, alternate means of service were warranted. The court then “examined the contours” of Rule 4(f)(3) to determine which alternate means would satisfy due process concerns.

Rule 4(f)(3) provides three general means for effecting service of process on defendants outside the United States. Paraphrased, these means are:

• Any internationally agreed means, such as the Hague Convention
• Any manner authorized by the laws of the foreign country
• Any means not prohibited by international agreement and directed by the court

Adopting the standard first applied in the Ninth Circuit decision of Rio Properties, Inc. v. Rio International Interlink, 284 F.3d 1007 (9th Cir. 2002), the court held that “Rule 4(f) does not denote any hierarchy or preference of one method of service over another.” Because Australia and the U.S. have no agreement between them regarding service of process, the court was free to consider any means for service reasonably calculated to alert the defendants of the action.

Given that the defendants were “sophisticated participants in e-commerce,” and that plaintiff had established the reliability of e-mail addresses used by the defendants, alternate service by e-mail was permissible. The reliability of service by e-mail was enhanced by Williams’s proposal to use an online service that provided encryption and digital confirmation of delivery.

Williams v. Advertising Sex LLC et al., — F.R.D. —, 2005 WL 2837574 (October 25, 2005).

You may recall a posting on this site from a few weeks ago about an Indiana court that concluded a plaintiff who hadn’t consulted the Internet failed to exercise due diligence in locating a defendant for service of process. A court in West Virginia has taken the centrality of Google in everyday life one step further. The judge in the case of Plemons v. Gale, 2005 WL 1798335, (S.D.W.Va., Jul 27, 2005) equates doing a Google search with the “reasonable person standard.” Here’s an extensive quote from the case:

“In the ‘time, place, and circumstances’ of this case, one who actually wanted to inform Ms. Plemons that her house was to be conveyed because of a failure to pay roughly $3,000 in taxes and fees would not have looked for her in the dusty corners of the Kanawha County record room. In the age of telephones, internet search engines, online newspapers, online people-finders, and readily available credit reports, most people can easily find someone. Thus, if a reasonable person were charged with the duty of locating Ms. Plemons in the relatively small city of Charleston, West Virginia, it is my belief that he would be likely to employ ‘Google’ to find her name, call information to learn her telephone number, contact her lending bank, or call her ex-husband. Instead, Advantage searched the public records for Ms. Plemons’ address and mailed written notices to two of the addresses contained therein. When the notices were found to be undeliverable, Advantage did nothing further. I continue to believe that those efforts failed to meet the constitutional standards of due process.” [Emphasis added.]

In the case of Ehrenfeld v. Bin Mufouz, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has refused Ehrenfeld’s request to allow service of process on Bin Mufouz, a Saudi Arabian national, by e-mail. Although service of process by e-mail is permissible in certain circumstances, Ehrenfeld failed to show that in this case correspondence by e-mail would be reasonably calculated to notify Bin Mufouz of the action.

Ehrenfeld wrote a book about the evils of funding terrorism. Bin Mufouz, a resident of Saudi Arabia, took offense to statements Ehrenfeld made about him in the book and filed a defamation lawsuit in the U.K. Ehrenfeld never appeared in that action, and Bin Mufouz threatened to enforce a default judgment against Ehrenfeld.

In response to those threats, Ehrenfeld filed this suit in federal court in New York, seeking a declaratory judgment that Bin Mufouz could not enforce the U.K. default judgment against her. Being unable to obtain service of the complaint and summons, Ehrenfeld filed a motion for leave to obtain service by alternate means pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(f)(3). Rule 4(f) provides for service on foreign individuals, and Rule 4(f)(3) specifically allows service by “means not prohibited by international agreement as may be directed by the court.”

The court noted that there is no international agreement addressing service of process on persons in Saudi Arabia. Thus, service could be made in any manner the court would approve. Ehrenfeld proposed various ways in which service might be made, including via e-mail to an address found on Bin Mufouz’s website.

The court refused to allow service of process by e-mail. It noted that “although courts have upheld service via e-mail, those cases involved e-mail addresses undisputedly connected to the defendants and that the defendants used for business purposes.” In this case, Ehrenfeld had not persuaded the court that Bin Mufouz maintains the website on which the e-mail address was found, that he checks that e-mail account, or that he would be likely to receive information transmitted to that e-mail address. The court found that the e-mail address was used only as an informal means of accepting requests for information rather than for receiving important business communications.

Ehrenfeld v. Bin Mufouz, 2005 WL 696769 (S.D.N.Y., March 23, 2005).