The case of the day is Real Wood Products, LLC v. Gallegos Carrocerias Gallegos SA de CV (M.D. Pa. 2025). Real Woodsued Gallegos, a Mexican company, for breach of contract. It served process by delivering the summons and complaint in Texas to “‘Jesus Garza, Legal & Compliance Employee’ for Defendant ‘c/o Gallegos Trailers, Inc.’” At least, that is what the affidavit of service said. When Gallegos didn’t answer, the clerk entered Gallegos’s default, and Real Wood moved for entry of default judgment.

The court denied the motion. The decision doesn’t fully explain the court’s reasoning, but it seems that the trouble was the notion that the documents were delivered “c/o Gallegos Trailers.” Let’s assume that Mr. Garcia was an authorized agent to receive service of process on behalf of Gallegos (the Mexican corporation) and let’s assume that Gallegos Trailers was a US subsidiary or affiliate with a Texas office and that Mr. Garcia just happened to be in Texas. If those are the facts, then the service would seem to be good under FRCP 4(h)(1)(B), which allows for service of process on a corporation “in a judicial district of the United States” by delivery of the documents “to an officer, a managing or general agent, or any other agent authorized by appointment … to receive service of process.” But what does it mean to be served “c/o” the subsidiary or affiliate? I have no idea, and neither did the judge. He wrote: “There are simply no facts alleged in the Complaint, the exhibits attached to Plaintiff’s motions , or any declaration or affidavit that Jesus Garza, an alleged ‘Legal & Compliance Employee’ for Defendant, was authorized to accept service on Defendant’s behalf ‘care of’ the separately incorporated entity Gallegos Trailers, Inc.”

There is no great point of law here, but there is a practical lesson. When you get a return of service from your process server, you don’t simply have to file it without reviewing it and asking the process server to make any appropriate clarifications or corrections. In fact, in cross-border cases where you’ve hired someone (a private process server, the sheriff, a huissier, or whomever), it’s probably a good idea to speak with him or her before the service to make sure you are on the same page about how the papers are to be served. It seems to me that the plaintiff’s case for service would have been much stronger had the return of service simply omitted the “c/o.” Then the question would simply be whether Mr. Garcia was an appropriate agent of the defendant. But now the plaintiff is stuck having to serve process via the Service Convention.