If the person you are serving lives in a country that belongs to the Hague Service Convention, Georgia’s own service statute sends you to the treaty.
Georgia’s Statute Names the Treaty
OCGA 9-11-4(f)(3)(A) provides that service on a person outside the United States may be made “[b]y any internationally agreed means reasonably calculated to give notice, such as those means authorized by the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents.” The alternatives further down the statute – the foreign country’s own procedure, a letter rogatory, personal delivery, mail dispatched by the clerk – apply only when there is no internationally agreed means, or when the agreement itself allows another method.
Whether the Country Is a Member Matters
That is not a formality. In Jahanbin v. Rafieishad, 292 Ga. 806 (2013), a Georgia divorce case involving service in Iran, the Georgia Supreme Court noted that “Iran is not a signatory state to the Hague Service Convention and there currently does not appear to be any special arrangement for service of legal process between the United States and Iran,” and so a different subsection of the statute governed.
A Georgia Case Where It Was Used
In Goldstein v. Goldstein, 229 Ga. App. 862 (1997), a mother took the parties’ daughter from Cobb County to Switzerland. The father filed contempt and custody modification actions in Cobb County and had her personally served in Switzerland under the Convention, and she signed for the papers.
The Court of Appeals held that this service gave the Cobb County court personal jurisdiction over her. It also held that the Hague Conventions “are binding in Georgia (as in all States) under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution,” and that they “provide the authority, as well as the method, for service of process internationally.”
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!