Home > Research Legal Advice > Family > Who by law is supposed to serve papers to the person u are taking to cou...
Get private, personalized proposals from top-rated lawyers ready to help you.
Asked about 1 year ago - Hesperia, CA
FlagMyself and my ex are going through court because he wants to modify a case over child support , visitation, and consolidating the child support. He has been serving me with the papers by mail and in person. Is he allowed by law to do that? Or is somebody else supposed to serve me because he's giving me some of the papers within the same month of the date and some the day after the final date for a class.
Generally speaking only the initial papers (the Petition, the OSC, the papers that "started" the proceeding) need to be served on you personally. Thereafter, once you have appeared in the case (that is, filed your response) most papers can be served by mail. As to who can do the serving, anyone over the age of 18 who isn't a party (that is, not him and not you) , so his dad would be ok.
It appears from your question that your former husband / the father of the children about whom the motions are being pursued is serving you pleadings both by mail and in person. He is not eligible to serve you. Only someone who is over 18 and NOT one of the parties in the case [that is, you or him], can serve pleadings.
Whoever serves the pleadings needs to complete a Proof of Service that states, under penalty of perjury, who it is that served the pleadings, on whom they were served, when they were served and by what method [personally, by mail, by FedEx, etc.]. There is a form that you use for the Proof of Service. The Proof of Service must be filed with the court.
If you appear at a hearing, even though your former spouse served you, you MUST object to the form of service. If you do not object to the court, the judge may go ahead with the hearing, anyway. If you object to the service of the pleadings and the court agrees, the matter will be taken off calendar or continued to another date.
I take it that the "dad" is the person you are taking to family court. Parties are not allowed by law to serve papers in their own cases.
What class are you referring to, in your question? If what the "dad" provided to you was not a legal document filed with the Court, or discovery, but was instead just informational, such as a schedule for parenting classes of something of that sort, as opposed to llegal documents in the case, the "dad" could provide those to you - but he didn't serve them. He just provided them to you, and you indicated that some of them he gave you late.
You would be better off if you retained an experienced Family Law Attorney to represent you in your child custody, visitation and support matter.
Don't speak legalese? We define thousands of terms in plain English.
Browse our legal dictionary
