Cunningham v. Montes

Dist. Ct. erred in denying defendant’s motion to vacate entry of default judgment, where issue remained as to whether plaintiff had made sufficient efforts to serve defendant with copy of complaint. Record showed that process server made one unsuccessful attempt to serve defendant at his Wisconsin home, under circumstances where defendant also maintained home in California. Moreover, Wisconsin law required plaintiff, who knows that defendant has multiple addresses, to attempt to serve defendant at each address, and plaintiff made no attempt to serve defendant at his California home. As such, remand was required for determination as to whether Wisc. statutory requirement that plaintiff show “reasonable diligence” in attempting to serve defendant was satisfied by instant single attempt to serve defendant at his Wisconsin home, and whether plaintiff could otherwise show that defendant was attempting to evade service so as to justify instant service by publication and subsequent entry of default judgment.