Gumenick v. Adams
- Garnett
- 1:25-cv-00209
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Gumenick v. Adams, Judge Garnett ruled that email-only service was insufficient and corrected the preliminary-injunction hearing date.
The ruling affects the plaintiff’s attempt to serve the defendant and obtain a summons; it does not decide the underlying dispute between Gumenick and Adams.
What happened
In Gumenick v. Adams, the plaintiff told the court that he could not find a personal or business address for the defendant and had contacted him only by email or text. He asked the court to treat email service as sufficient and direct the Clerk to issue a summons.
The court explained that serving the motion papers by email and mail did not replace the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure’s requirements for serving the summons and complaint. It said email-only service is insufficient under the rules in these circumstances, and noted that the plaintiff had neither requested permission for alternative service nor shown that the defendant was in another country.
Judge Margaret M. Garnett also clarified that she—not Judge Sherilyn P. Garnett—was the judge in this case and that the show-cause hearing would occur on January 24, 2025, at 2:00 p.m., rather than January 13.
The detailed version
- Gumenick v. Adams · No. 1:25-cv-00209
- Garnett
- Jan. 13, 2025
Background
The plaintiff, Robert J. Gumenick, wrote to the court before a scheduled hearing concerning an order to show cause with a temporary restraining order. He said he had been unable to locate a personal or business address for Joshua Adams after an extensive search and had been able to contact Adams only by email or text. The plaintiff asked the court to deem email service sufficient and instruct the Clerk to issue a summons.
The Clerk had rejected the plaintiff’s request for a summons because the docket did not authorize alternative service and a summons providing for email service could not be issued at that time. The Clerk directed the plaintiff either to obtain permission for alternative service or to refile using the ordinary requirements for service under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4.
Court’s ruling
The court ruled that service by email alone was insufficient under Rule 4. It explained that service of the documents supporting the plaintiff’s request for a preliminary injunction did not satisfy the separate requirement to properly serve the summons and complaint, which establishes the court’s personal jurisdiction over the defendant. The court noted that alternative service is permitted only in limited circumstances, including situations in which a defendant is located in another country and the plaintiff has shown that other service methods failed. The court found that the plaintiff had not requested alternative-service permission, had not established that Adams was in a foreign jurisdiction, and had not shown enough merely by alleging that he could not locate an address.
The court directed the plaintiff, who it identified as an attorney, to review the federal service rules and suggested using a process server if Adams did not waive service or the plaintiff could not otherwise comply. The court also corrected the judge’s identity and the hearing date: the judge was Margaret M. Garnett of the Southern District of New York, and the show-cause hearing was set for January 24, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. The opinion does not expressly state a separate grant or denial of the plaintiff’s request to deem email service sufficient.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.