Court Procedures / Evidence / Service

Generally, the purpose of requiring that the defendant/respondent be served with court paperwork, is to give that person notice that there is an upcoming court date, to give detail about the the allegations against him/her, and/or to put the person on notice that an order has been issued. In general, discrepancies or misstatements within the paperwork can be brought to the judge’s attention but may not affect the validity of the service. In many states, those types of errors may be brought to the judges attention by filing paperwork or at a court hearing, but they may not void service if service was otherwise done properly. If a person does not believe service was done properly, he/she may have the option of filing paperwork in court contesting service (denying proper service).

In general, when someone is contesting service, there may be a hearing where the petitioner can present witnesses and evidence to prove proper service, and the other party may have the opportunity to testify about how he/she was served. I cannot speak to the specific way this is handled in STATE or what would be expected at a hearing. This page on our site has the statute about service of a protection order in STATE: ADD LINK TO RO STATUTE We also have some information here about the service requirement for protection orders here: ADD LINK TO STATE KNOW YOUR LAWS PAGE ABOUT SERVICE IF WE HAVE IT