Legal Question in Business Law in California

Last night, I asked the following question: In California, can an attorney serve you legal documents by email? And I got the following response: "Your question submitted to LawGuru has been reviewed by an attorney. Unfortunately, we are unable to accept this question. The reason given by the attorney was: Not sufficient facts - Please re-write. Please consider submitting this as a paid question. Paid questions are reviewed by our staff and actions are taken to correct the question so that it may be answered by an attorney."

I'm not sure what else I should include in the question. But here is a hypothetical: An attorney representing a plaintiff serves a defendant 6 documents via email - is that proper service? I know that service can be made by personal service, by mail, by fax (if approved by defendant), but is it acceptable to serve the defendant by email without the approval of the defendant? These documents are not a summons and complaint nor discovery.

Hope that helps. Thanks.


Asked on 8/27/09, 10:32 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Bryan Whipple Bryan R. R. Whipple, Attorney at Law

I don't understand the rejection either - we aren't accepting paid questions in California yet.

As a starting point, I'd suggest you look up and read California Rules of Court 2.260 covering electronic service. Basically, it says a party that has consented to electronic service may be served electronically. Consent may br given by a notice that the party accepts electronic service, or is implied by that party filing any paper with the court electronically.

To amplify on that, however, I need to make three other points: (1) The parties or attorneys may agree to receive service of documents by e-mail, just as by FAX; (2) Courts have often held that service by an unapproved method, or that is otherwise defective, may still be deemed effective if the other party received adequate notice despite the defect. (3) Delivery of documents produced in discovery is not "service," and documents stored in electronic form can probably be produced as e-mail or e-mail attachments.

Also note that documents can be, and sometimes must be, filed electronically in some courts, state and Federal.

Overall this topic is covered in the Rules of Court sections 2.250 through 2.261.

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Answered on 8/27/09, 12:29 pm


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