Why do sometimes people have to wear disguises to serve court papers in person whereas most other important documents are just emailed or mailed
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You need “proof of service”. If you could actually touch the person, you don’t actually have to, then that proof can be gotten that day. If you can’t find the person, you have to post legal notices, and that might take a month or two.
Who’s in such a big hurry? It’s not clear, as most people aren’t actively avoiding service.
Imagine losing a case because it went to spam, and being ordered to pay thousands of dollars.
I don’t know how often disguises and trickery happens in real life, but some people will actively avoid being served so they can avoid court battles they don’t want to fight.
The core reason that many court documents have to be hand delivered is to ensure fairness, it wouldn’t be fair to you if you lost a legal case because the notification got lost in the mail. But like I said, some people will attempt to game the system and avoid notification entirely.
Depending on the local court rules, you may have to personally serve an individual. Personal service is important because it lets the person know with some certainty that there is an action against them. It makes it fair to the person being sued.
An email or letter in the mail may not be sufficient. There is no guarantee that a person will receive the non-personal form of service. It is possible to apply to the court to allow ordinary or alternative service, but court applications take time and money. The court also won’t grant alternative service unless they are satisfied that you attempted personal service. It is often quicker and cheaper to make a good attempt at personal service first.
Hey! I did this in college.
ELI5 – Missing a court deadline can have **very** serious consequences, so sometimes there are strict rules that require you to really prove that the person who was supposed to get the papers, actually got them. Other important papers are mailed, yes, but usually those papers don’t involve the threat of jail time or huge fines, if they get lost or stolen. Depending on the situation, sometimes those rules are a little more relaxed and you can mail certain paperwork, or even email now.
As for disguises: Because people wrongly think that by avoiding the papers, they can avoid the consequences of the court case. This basically never works, it just causes delays because the court case can’t move ahead until you can prove you got the papers to the person who needs them. People still do it, though, so sometimes you have to trick people into meeting you or answering their door, hence disguises.
By physically handing them to a person, you can have proof they were delivered. Electronically delivering them doesn’t offer that proof. The disguises are to avoid being noticed, so the party you are trying to serve the papers to can’t notice you and run away. These papers also have to be delivered by a 3rd party, so disguises are not common.
Once that initial paperwork is served, further correspondence can be done electronically, and the plaintiff say “the defendant knew this document was coming” since they were already given notice via the initial paperwork
Follow up question: do people who serve the papers usually photograph or record the serving?
In the name of fairness certain efforts have to be made to ensure a person is aware they are the subject of a case before a court in a timely manner so that they can secure representation or prepare to represent themself and lodge any considerations about needing to schedule for certain days and times to minimize interruption to ability to work.
The disguises are often because some judges / court officials refuse to humor the argument that a subject who has not been physically handed papers already knows they are being served due to the level of effort going in to being unavailable for service.
Once you’re served, the clock starts ticking before you just automatically lose the case if you don’t respond. That comes with serious legal consequences, so the court wants to be very sure that you actually get the notice and know what it is and what you have to do.
Therefore, they only allow service via specific methods. In some states, the court doesn’t allow service by mail (because there’s no proof of when/if you receive the mail). In those states, you have to hand serve somebody.
If someone knows that a lawsuit is coming their way, they might try to take advantage of this rule by making it hard to locate them and serve them the summons by hiding, running, etc.
I’m a private investigator who sometimes serves legal summons. I’m not allowed to lie or use subterfuge to serve papers, but that probably varies by jurisdiction. The reason legal documents are personally served is so that I can testify in court that I handed the respondent the paperwork myself, and they can’t claim they never got it as an excuse to not show up.
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