There are so many issues that can arise during a divorce settlement that no one thinks of until it happens to them. Sometimes a spouse has disappeared, so there's no one to actually sign the papers. Other times, one party simply refuses to grant a divorce for whatever reason. The list of obstacles in getting a divorce are endless, so one New York judge decided to do something about it. He issued a ruling that allowed a Brooklyn woman seeking a divorce to serve papers to her spouse via Facebook messages.
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Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Matthew Cooper allowed Ellanora Baidoo to use this normally casual form of communication to serve her husband with divorce papers, because he was completely unresponsive to every other attempt she and her lawyers made. Within his allowance speech, Judge Cooper said, "this transmittal shall be repeated by plaintiff's attorney to defendant once a week for three consecutive weeks or until acknowledged."
Baidoo and her soon-to-be ex-husband, Sena Blood-Dzraku got married in a civil ceremony back in 2009, but the marriage quickly fell apart when Blood-Dzraku refused to give his new wife the traditional Ghanaian marriage he promised her before they were legally married. Baidoo claims that as a result, the two never lived together, and never even consummated the marriage. They only talk via phone and Facebook now — Blood-Dzraku refuses to give his wife a current address so she can properly serve him divorce papers.
Baidoo's lawyers did everything they could to find him, but strangely enough his address was literally nowhere to be found. According to the ruling, "[the] post office has no forwarding address for him, there is no billing address linked to his prepaid cell phone and the Department of Motor Vehicles has no record of him." And no, he is not Jason Bourne.
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So the judge decided to make a monumental ruling that could potentially change how divorces go through forever. He declared that if Baidoo had her lawyer log into her Facebook account and serve Blood-Dzraku papers once a week for three weeks via Facebook message, the divorce will be legal and binding even if he doesn't respond. The idea seems to be if you've been given sufficient time and opportunities to respond to said served papers, and opt not to, you are essentially waiving your right to refuse the divorce.
So far, Baidoo's lawyers have only sent the papers once, and not surprisingly, Blood-Dzraku has not responded. If the ruling stands, and the divorce does go through, this will likely be just the beginning of a trend in legal proceedings of this nature. I only hope it doesn't extend to marriages. Facebook messages are cute sometimes, but I feel like the use of emojis would take all the romance out of it.
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