Legal Question in Constitutional Law in California

How to serve corporate and government defendants in Federal court action.

I 'm filing a lawsuit for violations of my federal and state constitutional and statutory rights, including antitrust violations, public nuisance, government waste. I have to serve both the private corps. involved and the local govts. that hired them and numerous public officials and public officers of the respective govts. and corps. I am thinking they should not really be all that difficult to serve -- by mail. I have the headquarters addresses for the private corporations. I am suing in both the individual and governmental capacities regarding the officials of the governments, does that mean I must serve the individuals twice? And is service on these individuals via a central government office sufficient (e.g. city hall)? Or do I have to serve each individual government official named as a defendant at their own government address (incidentally, they all work in the same building as to one gov. defendant)? And as to the corporate officers I named -- at their headquarters office? And, yes, I am a ''pro per'' litigant, as no attorney I have spoken to would take the case without being paid up-front, and I simply cannot afford to do that. (Of course, atty. fees are allowed under the causes of A. I state...)


Asked on 6/10/09, 4:20 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Michael Stone Law Offices of Michael B. Stone Toll Free 1-855-USE-MIKE

Re: How to serve corporate and government defendants in Federal court action.

You are going to sue a bunch of defendants in pro per in federal court. Whoop-tee-do.

I don't know how many attorneys you've spoken to, but there aren't very many attorneys who take federal civil rights cases, and even fewer who will take a gamble on laying out thousands of hours of time and thousands of dollars of litigation expenses in the hope of getting repaid years down the road.

If you can't find an attorney who will take your case on a contingent fee basis, and you are unwilling to pay money up front to hire an attorney, then your best option is to do nothing. You obviously don't know what you are doing, and the defendants have ample experience dealing with pro pers like you. They will swat you and your lawsuit out of court like a gnat, and you will wind up owing the villains thousands of dollars in court fines, attorney fees, and other costs for filing a frivolous lawsuit. Please look up Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

It is evident you have not given any thought to what steps you would need to take subsequent to your filing and serving your lawsuit, and how you would respond to the papers the defendants would immediately file. If you think that just filing a lawsuit will somehow magically convince a federal judge of the rightness of your cause, you've been watching too much TV. The $350 filing fee would be better invested at a craps table in Las Vegas, where you would at least have a chance of winning.

Your choice is the same choice as was faced by the attorneys who turned down your case. You can do the work and not get paid, or you can not do the work and not get paid.

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Answered on 6/10/09, 4:37 pm


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