For an appellant whose mail slot looks like the one pictured, there was an important decision yesterday. The California Supreme Court reached a sensible decision in Silverbrand v. County of Los Angeles, case no. S143929 (Apr. 23, 2009), in which the court holds that a prisoner’s pro se notice of appeal in a civil case is timely filed upon deposit with prison authorities for mailing. This brings the rule for timely filing of an appeal by a pro se prisoner in a civil case in line with the rule for a pro se prisoner’s filing of an appeal in a criminal case. Silverbrand’s medical malpractice action against the county and…
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Service of Summons via Social Media
Sometimes, a defendant manages to dodge service of summons quite skillfully. A colleague of mine once resorted to serving a defendant with summons at the defendant’s daughter’s wedding because the defendant had successfully dodged many prior service attempts. Now, an Australian court has authorized service of summons by notifying the defendant via Facebook (sidebar note at p. 10 of this PDF). And why not? If it hasn’t already happened here, it probably will eventually. California law (Code Civ. Proc., § 415.50) already allows for service of summons by publication in newspapers in certain cases when a plaintiff shows that “the party to be served cannot with reasonable diligence be served in another…