Court Approves Service Of Complaint Via Facebook, No Word On How Many “Likes” It Received

by: Peter J. Gallagher (@pjsgallagher) (LinkedIn)

Facebook is useful for a lot of things — humble bragging about your children, posting professionally taken candid photographs of your smiling family, announcing your engagement/marriage/pregnancy/baby's gender to several hundred of your closest friends, etc. In K.A. v. J.L., a New Jersey court added another item to this list. After observing that courts in other jurisdictions were almost evenly split on the issue, the court allowed plaintiffs in that case to serve defendant via Facebook. (When it researched the issue, I assume the court reviewed one of my prior posts about two New York courts that also allowed service via Facebook.)

K.A. involved very unusual facts. Plaintiffs sued defendant to "enjoin defendant from holding himself out as the father of their [adopted] son." Defendant, who was not the son's biological father of record, sent the son a friend request over Facebook. The son declined. Defendant then reached out to the son over Instagram, claiming that he was the son's biological father. Defendant allegedly informed the son that he knew where the son was born, and disclosed both the identity of the son's birth mother and that the son had "biological siblings at large." (Plaintiffs allege that defendant also sent a Facebook friend request to the son's sister, who, like the son, declined the invite.) Defendant also "incorporated a picture of [the son] into an image comprised of three separate photographs, each featuring a different person," and purportedly claimed that the collage was a picture of his children. Defendant shared this picture with the public on his Facebook account. Plaintiffs believe defendant obtained the image of the son from the son's Facebook account.

Plaintiffs claimed that defendant was a "complete stranger to them," and that they had no contact with him prior to the events that led to the litigation. Plaintiffs' counsel attempted to serve cease and desist letters on defendant at his last known address via certified and regular mail. The certified letters were returned as unclaimed, but the letters sent by regular mail were never returned. Plaintiffs then sued, seeking an injunction preventing defendant from contacting their son or claiming to be his father. They sought permission from the court to serve the complaint on defendant via Facebook.

Continue reading “Court Approves Service Of Complaint Via Facebook, No Word On How Many “Likes” It Received” →

“Just Remember, When You Control The Mail, You Control . . . Information.”

by: Peter J. Gallagher (@pjsgallagher) (LinkedIn)

Whenever it snows, we shovel out a little area in front of our mailbox because we heard that if the mail carrier cannot easily get to your mailbox, then he won't deliver your mail. This has always annoyed me, but not so much that I ever thought of suing our mailman. The same cannot be said of the plaintiff in Finnemen v. Pollard, who filed a federal lawsuit against his mail carrier for refusing to deliver his mail because his mailbox was broken.

The facts in Finnemen are a little sketchy, as plaintiff appeared pro se. Plaintiff's mail carrier, Defendant Maurice Pollard, told plaintiff that he would no longer deliver mail to plaintiff because plaintiff's mailbox was broken. When plaintiff went to the post office, defendant, Jamar (no last name), allegedly told defendant, Janine (also no last name), that plaintiff's mail could not be delivered because of the broken mailbox. Plaintiff claims that this was "a lie" but does not contest that his mailbox was broken. Regardless, Plaintiff alleged that defendants tampered with his mail because, when he visited the post office, he was sometimes able to pick up his mail and sometimes there was no mail for him to pick up. Plaintiff sued under Section 1983, alleging that his civil rights had been infringed by the individual defendants.

Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint, and the motion was granted. The district court held that plaintiff "fundamentally alleged" who participated in the alleged scheme to tamper with his mail, but not "how it was done or even how it amounts to tampering with his mail." For example, the district court noted that plaintiff failed to allege that his mailbox was in working order and that the re-routing of his mail was therefore part of a scheme, or that any mail was not turned over to him, or that it was delayed in reaching him. The court relied on another mail tampering case (who knew there was more than one) to hold that the allegations in the complaint did not "nudge his claim . . . across the line from conceivable to plausible" as required under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Although not immediately apparent from the complaint, the district court also held that, to the extent plaintiff was alleging discrimination — "that he has been required to pick up his mail where others have not — he failed to state a claim under this theory as well because he had not alleged that he was treated differently than others or that there was not a rational basis for that treatment.

Continue reading ““Just Remember, When You Control The Mail, You Control . . . Information.”” →

When Was The Last Time You Sent A Letter Via Telegram?

I have never sent a telegram and would not know how to send one even if I wanted to. But, if you are so inclined, there is a somewhat quirky provision of New Jersey real estate law that would allow you to dust off your telegram machine and send one. This provision was the subject of a recent Appellate Division decision, Conley v. Guerrero, that attracted significant attention from the real estate community and may end up before the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Anyone who has bought or sold real estate in New Jersey is familiar with "attorney review." When you buy or sell a house, you sign a contract that is almost always prepared by a broker. The contract must contain a standard provision stating that the buyer and seller have the right to have an attorney review the contract. This "attorney review" period lasts three days. The contract becomes legally binding if, at the end of that three-day period, neither the buyer's nor the seller's attorney disapproves of the contract. If either side disapproves, their attorney must notify the other side's broker by "certified mail, telegram or by delivering it personally." The attorney must also notify the other attorney (or the party itself if they are not represented), but the law does not specify the manner in which this notice must be delivered. (Stay tuned for more on this later!)

In Conley, plaintiffs signed a form contract to purchase a condominium unit from sellers. It contained the standard "attorney review" provision. After signing the contract, but during the attorney review period, sellers received competing offers to purchase the property and eventually entered into a new contract to sell it to a new buyer for a higher price. Sellers' attorney therefore sent a disapproval of plaintiffs' contract to both plaintiffs' counsel and the broker (who was a duel agent represented both plaintiffs and seller). He sent the notice of disapproval via email, which plaintiffs' counsel and the agent acknowledged receiving within the attorney review period. Nonetheless, plaintiffs argued that the notice was ineffective because it was not sent in the proscribed manner — by certified mail, telegram, or hand delivery.

Continue reading “When Was The Last Time You Sent A Letter Via Telegram?” →