Gaeth v. Deacon’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 district · 11 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “(1) When Service May be Made. The court, on motion upon a showing that service cannot with due diligence be made by another prescribed method, shall order service by publication in an action described in subsection (f) of this rule.... (2) Contents of Order .... The order shall also direct its publication once a week for 3 successive weeks in a designated newspaper of general circulation in the county where the action is pending; and the order shall also direct the mailing to the defendant, if the defendant’s address is known, of a copy of the order as published.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. MATSCO v. Brighton Family Dental, P.C. · Schulz v. Doeppe

2. “Because service by publication has become less likely to achieve actual notice of a lawsuit, it is also less likely to meet the requirements of due process. Today, just as one hundred years ago, notice of a suit must be given in the manner most reasonably calculated to apprise the defendant of the pendency of a suit. Accordingly, because of the recent societal changes, service by publication in a newspaper is now a last resort that a party should attempt only when it has exhausted other means more likely to achieve notice. The purpose of the rule regarding service is to achieve due process by giving sufficient notice of civil actions. In this case, service by publication was made in a small weekly newspaper circulating primarily in Lincoln County. [The defendant’s] only known contact with Maine was his attendance at Colby College, located in Kennebec County. He had no present contact with Maine, no present or past connections to Lincoln County, and his last known residence was in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is difficult to conclude that in those circumstances, notice in a weekly newspaper published in Lincoln County was reasonably calculated to give [the defendant] actual notice of the lawsuit.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. MATSCO v. Brighton Family Dental, P.C.

3. “[P]rior to March 29, 2004, [the plaintiff] conducted a computer search to find information on [the defendant] on auto-trackxp.com, a public records database, and a telephone number search to find [the defendant] on msn.com, neither of which was successful; in March of 2004, [the plaintiff] contacted the Colby College Alumni Association and was given an address for [the defendant] in Cambridge, Massachusetts; [the plaintiff] received a letter from [the defendant] dated April 19, 2004, with a return address in Cambridge, Massachusetts; in July of 2004, [the plaintiff] sent a Middlesex County sheriff to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to serve the complaint and summons, but the sheriff was unsuccessful in his numerous attempts to [e]ffect service at the Cambridge address because he was unable to gain entry into the apartment building, the main door being locked; on July 29, 2004, [the plaintiff] repeated the computer searches ..., but was unsuccessful in locating [the defendant]; and on August 4, 2004, [the plaintiffs] counsel received a response to the inquiry made to the post office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which indicated that Deacon’s address was in Cambridge, Massachusetts.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. MATSCO v. Brighton Family Dental, P.C.