Why Serving Divorce Papers Through Facebook Isn't That Ridiculous

​Many people find their future husband or wife online these days, so it's not so crazy to think they might pull the plug on a marriage via social media. A couple of weeks ago, a Supreme Court judge in New York ruled th​at a woman could serve her estranged husband divorce papers via Facebook. But is this about the become the new norm? And if so, what will happen to an entire industry of people hired to hand-deliver legal notices?

At the end of March, Justice Matthew Cooper made the ruling that a woman could serve her husband his divorce papers via Facebook message, with her lawyer's assistance. The couple was married in 2009 but had never actually lived together. The wife, 26-year-old Ellanora Baidoo, couldn't find a current address for her husband and had no way of contacting him outside of Facebook and the phone. He also refused to meet with her to receive the notice of divorce in person, so Cooper ruled it would be reasonable for Baidoo to use Facebook to do the deed.

"Under the circumstance presented here, service by Facebook, albeit novel and non-traditional, is the form of service that most comports with the constitutional standards of due process," Cooper wrote in his ruling. "Not only is it reasonably calculated to provide [the] defendant with notice that he is being sued for divorce, but every indication is that it will achieve what should be the goal of every method of service: actually delivering the summons to him."

The decision was covered widely in the media this week despite the fact that its not actually the first time this kind of ruling has been laid down. Just a few months ago, a judge allowed a man to use Facebook t​o serve his ex-wife with notice that he would no longer be paying child support. Facebook and social media already regul​arly play a role in divorce proceedings and, as Cooper notes in his decision, serving papers via email has been periodically permitted by courts for about a decade.

"Especially with subpoenas, a lot of people nowadays come to an agreement via email so that's taken a lot of the business away," Jerry Castaneda, a process server—someone who is hired ​to hand deliver a notice of legal action, like divorce papers or subpoenas—in Los Angeles. "They've sort of cut out the middleman, so that definitely affects us."

Castaneda said he can't imagine Facebook becoming the preferred method for serving notice, especially for sensitive issues like divorce and child support. But if the law were to change to make it an acceptable option—without needed special permission from a judge—it would eat into the business for process servers.

Baidoo's case was unique, according to Jane Aceituno, an attorney who practices family law in San Francisco, but she thinks it's indicative of the future of service of process (the technical term for serving someone with papers).

"This is usually not a problem because when people divorce they know exactly where that person is living because they were living together," Aceituno told me. "But I'd say this is definitely a sign of things to come."

Aceituno said the bottom line is that service of process is all about making sure the person is aware that a legal process is going on. Under current laws, the means of notifying people are the ones that have been deemed most effective in the past: handing the notice face-to-face, or nailing it to the person's front door, for example. But more and more often, as we are all well aware, the best way to contact somebody is online.

"Basically what you want to do is make sure you have a process that will guarantee they will see the legal notice and Facebook and other social media may end up becoming that," Aceituno said. "Social media is ubiquitous and the overwhelming majority of the population has a Facebook account or is on other social media. You always know that they're checking in."

Cooper himself made similar predictions in his ruling, writing that "the past decade has also seen the advent and ascendency of social media, with websites such as Facebook and Twitter occupying a central place in the lives of so many people." Cooper called using social media as a method to deliver summons the "next frontier" of service of process law.

While the two examples so far have come from New York judges, Aceituno predicted the first changes to service of process law may come from California where politicians have term limits.

"You don't have a situation where an 80-year-old man has been serving one seat for the last 50 years. The ability to have new blood and maybe younger legislators opens up the door for more tech-related legislation to get through," she said.

But even with possibility of more modern options, Castaneda told me he doesn't think it's a death knell for the process server industry.

"Process servers can testify in court that they've done the due diligence to serve this person face-to-face," he said. "Facebook is good if there's no other option, but you've got to provide proof that you've done that due diligence."