THE Supreme Court in the Australian Capital Territory has ruled that court documents can be served to defendants through notification via the Facebook social network, a decision that could have broad implications for the legal system nationwide.
Canberra lawyer Mark McCormack used the internet to find a couple who defaulted on a “six-figure” loan, and won the right through the ACT Supreme Court to serve them with the default judgement through Facebook.
And it is a decision lawyers are saying the decision could be a world first, but would almost certainly be replicated elsewhere.
“We couldn’t find the defendants personally after many attempts so we thought we would try and find them on Facebook,” Mr McCormack said. “We did a public search based on the email address we had and the defendants Facebook page appeared.”
The Facebook profiles showed the defendants dates of birth, email 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.
Writing on the smh.com.au news web site, Nick Abrahams, a partner Sydney office chairman of the law firm Deacons said the Australian courts were regarded as among the most technologically advanced in the world.
Courts in Australia had already allowed judgements to be served via email and, recently in the case the rugby league player Sonny Bill Williams who skipped out on a contract with the Bulldogs footy team, via SMS.
“A default judgement is given by the court where the defendant does not appear in court to defend the case,” Mr Abrahams said. “Once the plaintiff has been awarded the default judgement by the court, the plaintiff must then locate the defendant and serve the judgement on them.”
Usually this is done by way of personal service or the mailing of the judgement to the defendant's home – but this can be difficult if the defendant does not want to be found,” he said.
But now Master Harper of the ACT Supreme Court “has ordered that the defendants in the case could be validly served by the plaintiff sending a message by computer to the Facebook pages of both defendants informing them of the entry of and the terms of the judgement,” Mr Abrahams said.
Mr McCormack told the Herald his legal firm, Meyer Vandenberg Lawyers, had not any other examples of Facebook being used to serve court papers.
But it could be we see a lot more of it in future.
