Lawyers in Australia have served court papers to a couple via
Facebook.
Despite several attempts to get in touch with the couple,
lawyers had no luck and were allowed to serve the court papers via
the social networking site
A judge in Australia's supreme court allowed lawyers from the
Canberra-based firm Meyer Vandenburg to serve the papers via the
site, after being satisfied that the profiles the lawyers had found
did belong to the defendants in question.
The firm said in a statement, "We couldn't find the defendants
personally after many attempts so we thought we would try and find
them on Facebook.
"The Facebook profiles showed the defendants dates of birth,
e-mail addresses and friend lists and the co-defendants were
friends with one another. This information was enough to satisfy
the court that Facebook was a sufficient method of communicating
with the defendants."
A default judgement was served, which is given to someone if
they do not appear in court. It is the plaintiff's responsibility
to personally deliver or mail the document, which can be a
difficult task, the lawyers said, if the defendant is not easily
located.
Courts have previously allowed judgements to be served via
e-mail and text.