So you are sitting at your desk, reading emails, surfing the web, when you get a new message notification on your favourite social networking site. Figuring it is a note from a friend you check the inbox. To your surprise, it is a legal notice of a lien. Normally reserved for hand delivery, liens and legal notices have rarely been delivered through any other channel. It is now a completely different story.
The Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court has approved a lawyer’s request to use Facebook to serve legally binding documents — in this case, a lien notice — after he failed, via email and at home, to reach a married couple in default. Lawyer Mark McCormack, representing a lender whose loan the couple failed to honor, had his request approved — after which their Facebook profiles were willfully withdrawn from public view.
The lawyer, McCormack, argued the attempt would demonstrate to the court that his client took all reasonable steps to address the couple. “We do see it as a valid method of bringing the matter to the attention of the defendant,” McCormack asserted. He also demonstrated no interest in pursuing the pair across other social networks. “It’s one of those occasions where you feel most at home with what you know and I myself have a Facebook account,” he explained.
In a way, the motion puts Facebook on a par with more traditional media. Australian courts have previously granted permission for lien notices to be served via email and text messages if they were otherwise unavailable. Last April a District Court judge in Queensland, Australia ruled legal documents could not be served on Facebook, but only because attempts to contact the violator via post office box hadn’t been exhausted.
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