Legal Question in Family Law in Tennessee

Wife/Lawyer not letting Husband/Client not be served

This lawyer has been representing her husband in a DHS (Child Support case) and when he (husband) was being served with the Summons, after a police officers tried to serve him several times, she (the attorney) answered the door on April 12, 2007. She stated her husband was in the house and would not have her husband come to the door. She was informed that she was interfering with service of legal documents, but still declined to let her husband come to the door. The last attempt of the summons was on April 13, 2007 with no response. Would this be grounds for being disbarred?


Asked on 12/26/07, 9:11 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Jes Beard Jes Beard, Attorney at Law

Re: Wife/Lawyer not letting Husband/Client not be served

Would it be grounds to disbar the attorney? No. But it does sound like grounds to fire the officers who were the process servers.

You see the attorney could not FORCE her client to come to the door to accept the summons. Should could not force him to do so as either his attorney or his wife.

But the officers COULD have left the summons with her and service of process would have been accomplished by doing so.

Under Tennessee's Rules of Civil Procedure allow service of process to be made (including serving a summons) by leaving it at the individual's home with any adult living there if the person is avoiding service. Additionally the rules require that when a party has an attorney service must be made on the party's attorney, meaning the office not only COULD have served the attorney, but they were REQUIRED to serve the attorney instead of the actual party.

I don't see that the attorney did anything wrong. The officers attempting to service the summons flat out failed to do their jobs.

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Answered on 12/30/07, 2:22 pm


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