Jones Jr., Thomas R., United States Magistrate Judge
The district court allowed plaintiff to serve process on a Turkish
defendant by sending the appropriate documents to defendant’s email, Facebook,
and LinkedIn accounts after defendant provided those accounts to plaintiff to
use during discussions about the lawsuit.
Plaintiff and Turkish defendant originally communicated about a trademark infringement lawsuit via email, where defendant provided plaintiff alternate email addresses and stated “you can find me in all social network [sic] with this email address.” After several subsequent failed communication attempts, including a courtesy copy of the complaint to the original email, and two time extensions to serve process, the court granted plaintiff’s motion to serve process on Turkish defendant “through email and social networking websites pursuant to Rule 4(f)(3).”
Recent decisions have established that courts may apply Rule 4(f)(3) in any manner that is reasonably assured to provide defendant with notice of the lawsuit and in a manner that does not violate international agreement. Because Turkey complies with Article 10 (service of process) of the Hague Convention and the methods plaintiff proposed to reach defendant are “reasonably calculated under the circumstances to provide defendant notice of this suit,” serving process through email, Facebook, and LinkedIn was reasonable in this case. The court noted that defendant himself provided plaintiff with additional methods to reach defendant, and plaintiff verified that the email provided for the social media sites matched the information given. This evidence also supported the notion that defendant is a regular user of social media sites and is considered a preferred method of communication.
v.
GOKHAN ORUN d/b/a/ WhoNear; Who Near; whonear.me, Defendant