The legal profession is not known for being ahead of the curve when it comes to utilizing new technology. In fact, the profession is more known to gravitate toward tradition over innovation. However, sometimes new technological/cultural norms force themselves upon the profession, and the courts are forced to deal with the issues. One of the issues courts are facing more and more is the issue of service of process via email or social media. While the cases below, one that permits service via email and social media and one that does not, are from outside of Pennsylvania, they illustrate an issue that will face all litigators in the near future; the tension created by trying to reconcile constitutional concerns pertaining to service of process and evolving technology/communication.

The Case for Service

In Baidoo v. Blood-Dzroky, 5 NYS 3d 709 (Sup. Ct. NY Co. 2015), a New York trial court permitted service by Facebook Messenger. Baidoo was a divorce proceeding where the plaintiff wife applied to the court to permit her to serve her estranged husband with the divorce summons solely by serving it via Facebook Messenger, an instant messenger service that allows Facebook members who are connected as “friends” to privately message each other.

Like Pennsylvania, New York Civil Procedure prefers personal service over any other type of service. However, in the case of Baidoo's husband, personal service was futile. As the Baidoo court outlined, the husband's last known address was vacated by him four years prior to the suit. He also was unemployed so there was no place of employment available for service. Additionally, more “traditional” alternate service, like “posting,” requires knowledge of the subject's address. In this case, posting would also be impossible.

As Baidoo was able to prove that: her husband—who she spoke to occasionally over the phone—refused to give her a good address or meeting place to be served; and that her personal investigators exhausted all reasonable means to find an address, the court had to address her request for service by Facebook. Like Pennsylvania's Civil Procedure Rule 430, New York has a rule that allows its courts, upon application, to direct the manner upon which service is to be made should the plaintiff be able to prove that traditional service or alternative service is “impracticable”; a burden, the court noted, which had been met by Baidoo.