The Ohio Supreme Court has 86′ed the idea of delaying service of a complaint. The Court noted that Civil 4(A) specifically requires the Clerk of Courts to forthwith serve a complaint upon a defendant once it is filed. As such, the practice of stamping a complaint “Do Not Serve” appears to be unacceptable.
The case is Seger v. For Women, Inc., 2006-Ohio-4855 which was decided on October 4th.
The August edition of Chief Executive magazine ran an interesting article (”Crashing Boards: Telling the soundrels from the fakes,” by Joe Queenan) about the rise of phonies in our society. It notes that the movie Wedding Crashers has inspired wedding parties to “routinely hire guards to inspect guests’ credentials and make sure no pranksters slip through.”
The interesting part is that, apparently, pranskters (I prefer the term phonies) have made their way into several corporate board rooms. “Some board crashers are little more than industrial spies who pretend to be directors to gather valuable intelligence for the firms that employ them. But most of the board crashers are doing it just for laughs.”
In my mind, this raises of question of liability. Directors owe fiduciary duties to the corporation. Shouldn’t that include knowing the identity of fellow directors? The author notes that a sense noblesse oblige discourages real directors from confronting phony directors. And if confrontation occurs, there’s no telling the result….
Quoting an retired octogenarian director, the article retold an amusing story. “There was one feller down at the far end of the table who kept rattling on and on about maximixing shareholder value, something we never, ever did at meetings. Well, the way he carried himself just didn’t sit right with me, and finally I got right in his face and asked who the hell he was. Damned if it wasn’t Donald Trump himself. Guess my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.”
My thinking is that if shareholders elect directors to run a company, the least a director can do is risk a little embarrassment and ask “Who are you?” Failure to do so may open the gate to an enterprising plaintiff’s attorney …
One of the biggest complaints I have heard from the general public is the inability to adequately evaluate the judicial candidates when election time rolls around. A couple years ago, the various agencies that do conduct candidate evaluations united their voices in an effort to reach the public better.
The Judicial Candidates Rating Coalition is comprised of The Cleveland Bar Association, The Cuyahoga County Bar Association, The Cuyahoga Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, The Norman S. Minor Bar Association and The Ohio Women’s Bar Association. These associations jointly publish their evaluations in an effort to educate the public so that informed elections can occur.
