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Email OK’d to serve summons, cross-claim
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Posted on Jul 11 2011
The federal court has allowed the former trustee of JLH Trust (Junior Larry Hillbroom) to serve via email and registered mail the summons and his cross-claim against attorney Barry J. Israel, one of Hillbroom’s former lawyers.
U.S. District Court for the NMI judge Frances M. Tydingco-Gatewood ruled that Israel appears to be “an elusive international defendant, striving to evade service of process.”
Tydingco-Gatewood said the “particularities and necessities of [this] case require alternate service of process.”
The judge said the lawyer of JLH Trust former trustee Keith Waibel shall have 30 days to serve Israel, by email, with an electronic version of the summons and cross-complaint.
“Israel shall be deemed served with the summons and cross-complaint on the date that cross claimant Waibel’s counsel receives a confirmation of the receipt of the email and files [this] confirmation with the court,” Tydingco-Gatewood said.
Should service by email fails, the court’s clerk shall address and send via U.S. mail the summons and cross-complaint to Israel at the address of his residence, the judge said.
Israel shall be deemed served with the summons and cross-complaint on the date that he, or someone on his behalf, executes the mail receipt, she added.
Waibel, through counsels G. Patrick Civille and Robert T. Torres, asked the court to allow him to serve the summons and his cross-claim against Israel by email and registered mail as the lawyer is hiding in Vietnam.
Waibel told the court that Hillbroom has demonstrated that all conventional attempts to serve Israel with summons have proven fruitless.
Hillbroom is one of the four DNA-proven children of the late business tycoon Larry Lee Hillblom.
Hillbroom has sued Israel in federal court for allegedly conspiring to inflate the attorneys’ contingency fee when Hillblom’s fortune was still undergoing probate proceedings. Waibel was also named co-defendant in the lawsuit for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and racketeering activity.
Waibel denied the allegations and filed a cross-claim against Israel in federal court.
