Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Missouri

Re: Serve a summons

They will just keep coming back till they serve her. If she ducks the summons, it doesn't stop the lawsuit. The lawsuit remains on file. In some cases (like divorce) it is possible (though not desirable) for the other side to do service by "publication" which means the summons is printed in the newspaper every week for six weeks or so. Ducking a summons slows up a case, but it doesn't make it go away. Instead, it just makes the people who are suing you that much more annoyed, which means it is likely that it will be more difficult to resolve the underlying matter.

We've had process servers dress up as little old ladies looking for directions, or feign an accident, to get someone out of their house to receive a summons. Private Investigators are usually quite dogged, and in the end, she will pay the extra costs because every trip the PI makes will be charged to the law firm suing her. That gets added to the bill that she is being sued for (or to the costs of the case). In the end, ducking a summons is just not a very smart approach.