Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Serve them before the CMC by hiring a private process service company or private investigator as appropriate.

Mr. Stone's advice is correct, but to answer your question, both apply because they have different purposes. The CRC rule is part of the "fast track" rules intended to complete 90% of all cases within one year from their filing date. The penalties for not meeting the requirement vary by county and sometimes by judge, but will never result in dismissal just for missing the 60-days. You may be sanctioned if you can't show you are making efforts to serve, such as Mr. Stone suggests, but only after several CMC's pass without service and without a motion to serve by publication would a case be dismissed for wilful failure to serve in a timely fashion, and even then it is in the discretion of the court. The three year rule is mandatory dismissal after three years.

1. You are subject to the California Rule of Court rule right now. The 3 year rule mandates dismissal, and is inapplicable at this time. Ignore it.

2. The purpose behind the California Rule of Court rule is to get you moving, instead of tying up court time and dockets with a case that has not been served. The court has the authority to sanction you. Unfortunately, I do not agree with Mr. McCormick on this one point, because I have seen courts dismiss for failure to serve within 60 days, although they are not supposed to. In other words, the court orders you to pay the court money for sanctions, but is not supposed to dismiss your case unless the monetary sanctions previously ordered have had no effect on your compliance. I have seen two cases that this happened, in which we were forced to appeal. After a time consuming and costly appeal, one was reversed and was affirmed.

You need to find the defendant and have him served. If you can't, you are going to have to file an ex parte motion with the court to serve by publication. The courts are very picky on these motions, and expect you to show all of the efforts you have made to have the defendant served normally.