A couple of years ago, I posited in “Removal and the Timing of Hague Service Convention Requests, Real World” that not only must service be effected properly, but the contents of the service packet had to be proper as well.  I discussed a case in which State Farm* sued a Korean defendant– among others– in state court, but one of the defendants removed the case to federal court before State Farm’s counsel initiated…

Two white whales are the subject of my Captain Ahab diatribes in this space.  One concerns an issue of cross-border civil procedure, while the other concerns a rather goofy* interpretation of what the rest of the world views as plain language.  I address here the latter of the two:  the concept of a child’s habitual residence.  Remember those words, friends, because the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously today that the term habitual residence…

We ain’t building rockets here.  But we are building a ship of sorts, and a leaky vessel means the cargo may not make it to its destination.  Serving process in Malta is subject to the strictures of the Hague Service Convention, regardless of which U.S. or Canadian venue is hearing the matter.  This chain of islands, a former British colony off the southern coast of Sicily, isn’t just the site of a boat race in Season 1…

Last week, in “Wrong reasoning, right result?“ I ranted a bit– criticizing the latest in a nationwide string of wrong decisions involving FRCP 4(f)(3).  At issue: whether courts can authorize service by email on defendants located in Hague Service Convention countries that object to Article 10(a). My view is awfully straightforward– if the Convention applies, and the destination country objects to 10(a), then Nein.  没有。Нет.  ほぼ。 幾分。 Not no, but hell no.* In a…

Just off Australia’s east coast lies a gorgeous chain of islands known today in large measure for its huge population of Elves, Orcs, and Dwarves (and one very grumpy little fellow).  Before New Zealander Peter Jackson filmed his Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, New Zealand was famous primarily for (1) the Māori Haka,* especially performed by its powerhouse All Blacks national rugby union team, and (2) sheep.  LOTS of sheep.  Oh, and…

The question mark in that headline only applies to half of the headline. The result might be correct, depending on facts not articulated in the order, but the logic behind N.D. Ohio’s grant of leave to serve by alternative means in China is (to put it delicately) fatally flawed– an illustration of how “kinda-sorta-bad” law can evolve someday into extraordinarily-unquestionably-bad law.  In NOCO Company v. Shenzhen Lianfa Tong Technology Co., Ltd. et al. (1:19-cv-01855), the court issued…

A couple of years ago, I posted an admonishment that Service of Process in Hong Kong means Hong Kong, CHINA.  That post was a precursor to the nuts & bolts post I put up a few months later on How to Serve Process in Hong Kong.  In that post, I stressed the care needed in properly naming the former British colony: Serving process in Hong Kong is subject to the strictures of the Hague…