Water Splash Inc. v. Menon, 2017 No. 16-254, Supreme
Court of the United States 581 U. S. ___ (2017)
The plaintiff, Water Splash Inc., is a corporation that
produces aquatic playground systems. The defendant, Tara Menon, is a
former employee of Water Splash. In 2013, Water Splash sued Menon in
State Court in Texas, alleging that she had begun working for a competitor
while still employed by Water Splash.
Menon resided in Canada. As a result, Water
Splash sought and obtained permission from the Texas court to effect service of
its complaint on Menon by mail. After Menon declined to answer or
otherwise enter an appearance, the Texas court issued a default judgment in
favour of Water Splash. Menon moved to set aside the judgment on the
ground that she had not been properly served, but the trial court denied her
motion.
Menon appealed, arguing that service by mail does not “comport
with the requirements of the Hague Service Convention”. A
majority of the Texas Court of Appeals sided with Menon and held that the
Convention prohibited service of process by mail. One Justice
dissented. The Court of Appeals declined further review and the matter
made its way to the US Supreme Court.
In an 8 – 0 decision, the court found in favour of Water
Splash and vacated the judgment of the Court of Appeals. The Supreme
Court remanded the case back to the Texas Trial Court for further
consideration.
The court’s reasoning is as follows.
The primary innovation of the Convention is that it requires
each state to establish a central authority to receive requests for service of
documents from other countries. When a central authority receives an
appropriate request it must serve the documents or arrange for their service
and then provide a certificate of service. However, submitting a request
to a central authority is not the only method of service approved by the
Convention. At issue in this case was Article 10 of the convention which
reads as follows:
10. Provided the State of
destination does not object, the present Convention shall not interfere with
(a) the freedom to send judicial
documents by postal channels directly to persons abroad,
(b) the freedom of judicial
officers, officials or other competent persons of the State of origin to effect
service of judicial documents directly through the judicial officers, officials
or other competent persons of the State of destination,
(c) the freedom of any person interested
in a judicial proceeding to effect service of judicial documents directly
through the judicial officers, officials or other competent persons of the
State of destination.
Articles 10(b) and 10(c) address additional methods of
service that are permitted by the Convention (unless the receiving state
objects). By contrast, Article 10(a) does not expressly refer to
“service”. The question in this case was whether, despite this difference,
Article 10(a) encompassed sending documents for the purposes of service.
The US Supreme Court found that it did. The key word
in Article 10(a) “send” is a broad term and there is no apparent reason
why it would exclude the transmission of documents for the purpose of
service. The Convention’s preamble and Article 1, limit the scope of the
Convention to service of documents abroad and its full title includes the
phrase “service abroad”. The US Supreme Court had also previously held that
the scope of the Convention is limited to service of documents. It would
therefore be strange if Article 10(a) concerned something other than service of
documents. Indeed such a reading would render Article 10(a)
superfluous. Since Article 1 already eliminated the possibility that the
Convention would apply to any communications that do not culminate in service,
in order for Article 10(a) to make sense it must pertain to sending documents
for the purpose of service. If the drafters of the Convention wished to
limit Article 10(a) to something else, they could have said so as they did in other
Articles.
Secondly, the structural considerations of the Convention
strongly suggests that Article 10(a) pertains to service of documents.
Reading the word “send” as a broad concept that includes, but is not
limited to, service is probably more plausible than interpreting the word to
exclude service. Indeed, the French version of the Convention which is
equally authentic uses the word “adresser” which has consistently been
understood to mean service or notice.
Thirdly, extratextual sources are especially helpful in
ascertaining Article 10(a)’s meaning. The Convention’s drafting history
strongly suggests that the drafters understood that service by postal channels
was permissible. In the half century since the Convention was adopted,
the Executive Branch of the United States has consistently maintained that the
Convention allows service by mail. Also, other signatories to the
Convention have adopted Water Splash’s view.
Fourthly, the fact that Article 10(a) encompasses service by
mail does not mean that it affirmatively authorizes such service. Rather,
service by mail is permissible if the receiving state has not objected to
service by mail and if such service is authorized under otherwise applicable
law. Because the Texas Court of Appeals concluded that the Convention
prohibited service by mail, it did not consider whether Texas law authorized
the method of service used by Water Splash. The US Supreme Court remanded
that issue and any other remaining issues back to the trial court in Texas for
consideration.
Regards,
Blair
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