by: Peter J. Gallagher (LinkedIn)

In what has become more and more common in recent years, a New Jersey court recently had to decide whether to allow a plaintiff to serve a defendant over Facebook rather than in person or through other more traditional means. In 252 Main NM, LLC v. John R. Heywang, Lauran Heywang, and American Express Centurion Bank, the trial court’s ruling was a mix of the old and the new. It held that plaintiff could serve defendant via Facebook, but that plaintiff also had to serve defendant via publication in a local newspaper.
In 252 Main, plaintiff sued defendant to foreclose on a tax lien. Plaintiff’s counsel attempted to locate defendant’s address so it could serve him with the complaint. Counsel performed an internet search for defendant’s address; arranged for a skip trace search; submitted an Open Records Act request for defendant’s voter registration records; and submitted an inquiry to the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. All of these efforts yielded the same address in Teaneck, New Jersey. Defendant owned that property at one time, but lost it to foreclosure in June 2018 and was evicted in January 2019.
“Having exhausted traditional modes to locate defendant,” plaintiff’s counsel turned to social media. He located a Facebook account for defendant, which included pictures of defendant. The Facebook page indicated that defendant was from Teaneck and was living in Cancun. But defendant’s only post on the page was from January 2016.
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