You've Been Served
"Olivia Wilde" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Personal service is an engrained fixture of the American legal tradition. The act of handing someone a court summons and a copy of the plaintiff’s complaint serves (pun intended) a critical Constitutional function; it helps ensure due process of law by providing the defendant notice that he or she is being sued in a court of law. While Service of Process is a Constitutional rite that must be accomplished to ensure compliance with the Due Process Clause, Hollywood has portrayed some rather outrageous and creative means process servers use to effectuate service, from a process server disguised deliveryman serving Harvey Spector (played by Gabriel Macht) with a summons and complaint from a pizza box, to Dale Denton (played by Seth Rogan) serving a surgeon in the operating room.
More recently, actress Olivia Wilde was served in Las Vegas with legal documents pertaining to a custody suite filed by actor Jason Sudeikis, the father of Olivia Wilde’s two children. While the news of one celebrity serving another celebrity with legal documents would’ve stirred the gossip tabloids, it was the manner in how Olivia Wilde served that made social media explode. Olivia Wilde was speaking on-stage at the Las Vegas Comic Con to promote her upcoming film, Don’t Worry Darling. In front of a crowd of 4,000, a woman slid an envelope to Olivia Wilde ironically labeled ‘Personal and Confidential.’ Upon realizing that the envelope contained a summons rather than a script, Olivia Wilde continued the show undaunted by the contents of the envelope. In a statement to Variety magazine, Jason Sudeikis “had no prior knowledge of the time or place that the envelope would have been delivered as this would solely be up to the process service company involved and he would never condone her being served in a such an inappropriate manner.”
In terms of serving someone under similar public circumstances, would this be allowed in California? Generally speaking, yes. Personal service, where a non-party over the age of 18 physically delivers the service documents to the party, is considered by the California judiciary as the most reliable method of service. Unlike service by email or service by publication, the court knows for sure that the person received the service documents and can question the process server if necessary. Hence, the rules pertaining to personal service are liberal. Service of Process can be done at a party’s home, work, or public setting. If the process server is allowed to be at a location as a member of the public, then service can be effectuated there.
While most of us are not an A-list celebrity filing a custody suit against our A-list celebrity ex-spouse, one should still consider the non-legal implications of serving someone in such a public manner. A public spectacle could brew further resentment between the parties and diminish the chances of reaching a settlement. One might consider having a frank conversation with his or her process server to avoid putting the opposing party in an embarrassing situation and consequently make a contentious situation that much more contentious.