Overview
Requests for substituted service have become more widespread in recent times due to the fact that defendants are avoiding service of proceedings which they know are coming. Substituted service is a method of delivering legal proceedings or court orders to a person other than by delivering it to them in-person. If a summons server makes three visits to the defendant's address and is unable to serve the defendant, and it appears that the defendant ordinarily lives at the given address, substituted service may be allowed as an alternative by the court. A plaintiff will usually be allowed to serve the court orders by post if the request for substituted service has been granted by the court. There are also recent High Court decisions which have set new legal precedent allowing service orders via, the social media websites, Facebook and LinkedIn.
The Rule
The rule on substituted service in Ireland is laid down in Order 10 of the Rules of the Superior Courts where it states that "if it be made to appear to the Court that the plaintiff is from any cause unable to effect prompt personal service,… , the Court may make an order for substituted or other service, or for the substitution for service of notice by advertisement or otherwise…. Every application to the Court for an order for substituted or other service, or for the substitution for service notice, shall be supported by an affidavit setting forth the grounds upon which the application is made". The court also allow service through advertising to the defendant but this is very rare.
Precedent
There are two landmark cases in Ireland where the courts have recognised that an acceptable form of substituted service can be via social media websites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. The first case where the courts allowed service of legal documents via Facebook was given by Mr Justice Peart in the High Court in the case of Daly v Lynch in June 2012. Peart J granted permission to a plaintiff to serve proceedings on a non-resident defendant, who had left the jurisdiction, by serving them by way of private message on the defendant's Facebook page. The plaintiff satisfied the court that both exhaustive efforts were made to locate the defendant and that the Facebook page in question was both genuine and also used regularly by the defendant.
In September 2014, a judge in the High Court made an order to allow a liquidator to serve a person connected with the firm with papers via the social media website LinkedIn. The accountancy firm PFK O'Connor, Leddy and Holmes, which had been appointed as liquidators of the Irish Education and Research Institute, could not contact the respondent in person, by email, fax or postal address. O'Hanlon J in the High Court granted a request from the liquidator to serve the papers once she was satisfied they were being served to an active account.
Conclusion
These two decisions in the High Court have paved the way for court orders to be served via social websites that the defendants regularly use. There is no doubt that with technology and social media websites constantly evolving, the method of serving court orders via social websites will only become more common.
