Reasonable Diligence Established
July 2, 2014The defaulting defendant in this case claimed that the plaintiff’s service through the Secretary of State was defective because the plaintiff did not establish reasonable diligence in its failed efforts to effect service via registered mail and personal delivery. The Court of Appeals found that the plaintiff exercised reasonable diligence in both of its prior attempts to carry out service. Regarding registered mail, the record established that the plaintiff paid the clerk and arranged to have the defendants served by certified mail, return receipt requested at the defendant’s registered address. When the mailing was returned with the notation that it was undeliverable and could not be forwarded, the plaintiff had sufficiently exercised reasonable diligence. Regarding personal service, the plaintiff sent a process server to defendant’s registered address, but neither plaintiff’s business nor its registered agent were there. According to the Court, this was enough since “[t]he statute does not require efforts to find the registered agent at any place other than at the entity’s registered office.”
