Are there any men out there who were surprised by a letter from ASSume stating that they are thousands of dollars in arrears for child support. Based an order that you never knew about because you were served by publication. If you are like my family you might have been informed after the birth of your child by your second wife. The jealous ex, angry that the baby trap could not keep a man, whily accepying money directly from you, was keeping the default order secret until the sneak attack could cause the most stress in your new family life.
As we all know the civil code of Puerto Rico needs revision so that the laws will be more applicable to modern life. However it has been my experience that the lawyers and tribunals in P.R. have been acting in a manner inconsistant with federal due process requirements for over fifty years now.
The notion that sending the summons to the last know address, and of course wrong address, is sufficient for due process is wrong and an empty gesture. The US Supreme court in Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank Tr. Co., 339 U.S. 306, 70 S.Ct. 652, 94 L.Ed. 865 (1950), the United States Supreme Court discussed the constitutionality of service by publication and the implications that service by publication has on due process rights.
If you were severed by publication and the plantif did not make a resonable attempt to find your correct address by exercising due diligence and your address was easy to find, like in the phone book, or through military or tax records. The order is void, null. IVALIDO
Don't listen to the P.R. attorney or the judge they don't know how to apply the law. You may have to take your case to the supreme court of P.R. where there is now presidence to vacate void orders for lack of personal jurisdiction and invalid service of process. A judgment that is void for lack of personal jurisdiction is void from its conception and is not subject to any stupid six month time limitation. It amazes me how they have to serve you by publication because they claim that they don't know where you are but when it's time to collect the fraudulenly obtained money ASSume can find you in a few clicks of the "parent locator" computer. For some unfortunatly it may be to late. If you treated the order as valid by voulintarily making the required payments or if you did not properly attack the judgement whithin 20 days of it being registered in your state you may be estoppled from contesting its enforcement. In contesting the validity or enforcement you must request a hearing whithin 20 days of service and raise the jurisdicional challange in a motion or during testimony. By motion is best just incase the court reporter is also a part of the conspiricy an neglects to add the jurisdictional challange to the record. E-mail me so that we can share tips and experiences. I am not a laywer and this is not legal advise. I am a wife of a man whose financial life was ruined by an income withholding order from ASSume based on a default order in which he was never served. ldillon343@earthlink.net
The U.S. Supreme Court stated in Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank Tr. Co., 339 U.S. 306, 70 S.Ct. 652, 94 L.Ed. 865 (1950),
"An elementary and fundamental requirement of due process in any proceeding which is to be accorded finality is notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections. [Citations omitted.] The notice must be of such nature as reasonably to convey the required information, [citation omitted] and it must afford a reasonable time for those interested to make their appearance....
But when notice is a person's due, process which is a mere gesture is not due process. The means employed must be such as one desirous of actually informing the absentee might reasonably adopt to accomplish it. The reasonableness and hence the constitutional validity of any chosen method may be defended on the ground that it is in itself reasonably certain to inform those affected. Mullane, 339 U.S. at 313-16, 70 S.Ct. 652."
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3rd July 2003, 19:07
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