
Two years ago, I wrote about the “coming of age,” if you will, of service by electronic means. Well, the idea just hit the bigtime with service on Wikileaks via Twitter.
Setting aside questions about properly identified defendants (read: properly named entities and individuals associated with them), his one seems to fit squarely with a Rule 4(f)(3) alternative. That is, the legality of it seems okay.
If Wikileaks has an address, it seems for the moment that company HQ is inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London– a mere 20 miles from me as I write this.* This could mean either of two governing regimes controls: the Hague Service Convention or Rule 4 alone.
If the Embassy is viewed as Ecuador’s sovereign territory, no mandatory treaty governs manner of service. If it’s not (and the UK apparently takes this view), Hague channels just aren’t tenable. No process server is getting in the gate, and neither is an English judicial official. Mail is silly to even contemplate, whether sent from the clerk or from the UK Central Authority– it’s a non-starter to think Julian Assange is going to sign for a FedEx delivery from either. (UK service under Article 5 is usually mailed.)
So, what’s a court to do? Authorize an alternative means that, under the circumstances, is reasonably calculated to put a defendant on notice of a claim against it– and offers an opportunity to defend.**
That’s the constitutional standard, and it seems to have been met here.
Now let the substantive arguments begin. (There are some whoppers to come.)
* My last dispatch from England this trip… ironically a trip to discuss Hague service with colleagues from the UK and the US. I write this from a bus on the way to Heathrow.
** See Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950) for the full discussion.