Jurisdiction

Robert A. Hodges personally guaranteed $750,000 of debt that his company Laminate Kingdom, LLC (Laminate) owed to Relational, LLC (Relational). When Laminate went bankrupt, Relational sued Hodges on the guaranty, but by then Hodges had sold his Florida home and returned to his native United Kingdom leaving no forwarding information. Relational’s detective found an address for Hodges in the UK and effectuated personal service. To prove this, Relational submitted to the district court a return of service and two affidavits signed by a British process server, Karen Johns, who attested she had served a man who identified himself as Robert Hodges.

The district court accepted this showing and, when Hodges failed to appear, entered a default judgment for Relational. Relational then filed an action to enforce the judgment in a UK court.

Although Hodges persistently refused to accept it, Relational finally accomplished service. The day before the hearing in that action was to begin, Hodges emerged, filing a Rule 60(b)(4) motion in Illinois district court to vacate the default judgment. He argued he had never been served, that Relational’s evidence was insufficient to prove otherwise, and that thus the judgment was void.

A controversy ensued about whether Johns, the process server, who could not travel to the U.S. for an evidentiary hearing on Hodges’s motion, could testify telephonically from the UK; the court sustained Hodges objection. Relational secured an additional affidavit from Johns but this one lacked certification by an administrator of oaths. At hearing’s end, Relational submitted the supplemental affidavit signed by Johns. Hodges moved to strike the affidavit as an insufficient substitute for Johns’s live testimony, but the court denied the motion. The court denied Hodges’s motion to vacate and his motion for reconsideration on grounds the affidavit was legally defective.

Hodges appealed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirms.

The issue here is whether Hodges was, in fact, served in the UK.

The Appeals Court first deems the dispute over the supplemental affidavit irrelevant since the return of service and original affidavit Relational had offered were sufficient to discharge its prima facie burden:

“Relational’s original return of service and accompanying affidavit from Johns…attested that Johns served an individual at 20 Margaret Grove on May 10, 2007, at 4 p.m. who identified himself as Robert Hodges. The...