'Do it yourself' is sometimes best

My little calendar entry for the day refers to an impatient litigant in Cook County, Illinois, back in 1915. Apparently, the Sheriff of Cook County had had problems attempting service of a civil complaint against a Dr. L.D. Rogers for medical malpractice. After waiting five months for the Sheriff's Department to serve the good doctor ('good' being the ultimate issue in question) the Plaintiff took service into her own hands and attached the complaint and summons to an adequately sized brick and hurled same through the glass front door of the Doctor's home. Service was perfected.

This reminds me of one divorce case in which I represented the plaintiff in which I attempted to serve the defendant by second original at an address in Alabama. When I was given the address by the plaintiff, she had no idea in which county in Alabama the address of the defendant was located. Having a legal necessity to have the correct Sheriff serve the defendant, I looked on the internet to determine in which county the address was located. Finding what I thought was the correct county in Alabama, when I sent the complaint for service by the Sheriff of the county in which it appeared the defendant's house was located, after several weeks, the Sheriff's Office sent it back to me with a note that the defendant's house was located in the adjoining county.

I then amended the complaint and sent it for service to the Sheriff's office of the adjoining county. After several weeks, they sent it back saying that the address shown on the summons was not located in their county, but was in fact located in the original county. So, I took the original complaint and sent it back to the Sheriff of the original county, who, after several weeks, told me that the address at which I wished to serve the Defendant was an abandoned burned home where no one was living.

I contacted my client who informed me that the house in front was, in fact, burned and abandoned, however, that the house which was located behind that house was the actual residence of the defendant.

I then contacted the Sheriff of said county and informed them that the defendant could be served at the house behind the house. They apparently went to the house behind the house, only to be told by the Defendant's mother that the Defendant did not live there. Apparently motherly love is strong enough to require some mothers to lie for their sons to the deputy sheriffs of their home county.

At this point, I consulted with my client who informed me that the defendant did indeed live with his mother and his mother was lying to the deputies. Before I could call the Sheriff's office back and tell them to serve the '__________' anyway, the defendant apparently had a change of heart and called me to volunteer to receive service of my complaint and acknowledge same for purposes of my civil suit.

It just took about six months to effectuate but I finally got the '__________' served. After a reasonable amount of time, thereafter, at least in comparison, we actually got my client divorced from her husband.

All in all, I think it would have been much more effective if my client had taken a cue from the lady in the story on my calendar and served her husband by brick. I don't wish to opine as to the legal effectiveness of self-service by brick. But I bet the emotional satisfaction was immense.