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Tenn. Code Ann. § 21-1-203

Personal service dispensed with

Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case 5 Va. App. 426 - Gibson v. Gibson (1988)

Most recently applied in Adoption Place, Inc. v. Doe (December 2007)

Acts 1787, ch. 22, § 1; 1801, ch. 6, § 14; 1833, ch. 15, § 1; 1833, ch. 47, § 3; 1835-1836, ch. 43, § 5; 1855-1856, ch. 164, § 2); Acts 1915, ch. 42; Shan., §§ 6162, 6163; Code …

How often courts cite this section

198819902000200720
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) Personal service of process on the defendant in a court of chancery is dispensed with in the following cases: When the defendant is a nonresident of this state;

(2) When, upon inquiry at the defendant's usual place of abode, the defendant cannot be found so as to be served with process, and there is just ground to believe that the defendant is gone beyond the limits of the state;

(3) When the sheriff makes return upon any leading process that the defendant is not to be found;

(4) When the name of the defendant is unknown and cannot be ascertained upon diligent inquiry;

(5) When the residence of the defendant is unknown and cannot be ascertained upon diligent inquiry;

(6) When judicial and other attachments will lie, under this code, against the property of the defendant; and

(7) When a domestic corporation has ceased to do business and has no known officers, directors, trustees or other legal representatives on whom personal service may be had.

(8) To dispense with process in any of the cases listed in subsection (a), the facts shall be stated under oath in the bill, or by separate affidavit, or appear by the return. Code, 1858, §§ 4352, 4353 (deriv.

(9) The order for publication in lieu of personal service may be made at any time after the filing of the bill. The order of publication should contain the names of the parties, the style of the court in which the proceedings are had and the name of the place where the court is held, without any brief or abstract of facts, unless directed by the court.

(10) When the suit is against an unknown defendant, the order of publication should describe the unknown party, as near as may be, by the character in which the unknown party is sued, and by reference to the unknown party's title or interest in the subject matter of the litigation.

(11) Evidence of the publication in pursuance of the order may be by affidavit of the printer or actual production of the newspaper in court.

Current official text: Tennessee Code (LexisNexis). Digitized from the UniCourt Code Improvement Commission public-domain capture. Reproduced from public-domain Tennessee statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.