Can You Serve Legal Documents Via Pigeon?

It's been a while, but I'm back to answer the important questions. Today's pigeon-themed inquiry is not inspired by any news stories or current events. Instead, it popped into my head and demanded an immediate answer. Those who would like to know the answer, and learn some trivia about pigeons and related laws should read on.

As a bit of background, carrier pigeons (or homing pigeons) are pigeons that have been bred to find their way back to a fixed point even after being transported over long distances. Pigeons may be trained to carry small packages containing messages or other items. Because pigeons can only return to a fixed point, the person sending the message must have a pigeon that will return to the recipient's location. As this New York Times article details, pigeons have been used for sending messages, samples of blood, and other items over long distances, and have been employed in multiple wars to send communications from the field. In the John Wick universe, the Bowery King uses pigeons to send messages and small objects.

Naturally, this prompts the question of whether pigeons may be used to effectuate service of pleadings or documents in litigation. Case law on whether sending a document by pigeon constitutes valid service is limited. From what I could find in a cursory search, no US court has directly addressed a situation where a party has attempted to serve a legal document on someone using a pigeon. A couple courts have considered pigeon-service as a hypothetical scenario, but both appear to disapprove of the practice. 

In Geiling v. Wirt Financial Services, Inc., No. 14-11027; 2014 WL 8473822 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 31. 2014), the plaintiffs took issue with documents that had been produced in discovery that contained the plaintiffs' social security numbers, claiming that the mailing of these documents violated a Michigan state law against transmitting full social security numbers through the mail. The court noted an exception to this rule for documents sent by mail pursuant to legal discovery or process. The plaintiffs argued that this exception should not apply and the court disagreed, noting that the Michigan Court Rules envisioned that parties would produce documents in discovery through first-class mail. The court further suggested that "parties sending documents by untrustworthy means, carrier pigeon for example, could be faulted for operating outside normal discovery bounds," but not parties using standard methods to mail documents. (emphasis added). This suggests that the court would view service by carrier pigeon as a method of service outside of normal discovery practices, but a direct ruling on the issue must wait for another day.

In Seibold v. Commissioner of Dept. of Motor Vehicles, No. HHBCV136019840S; 2014 WL 565905 (Ct. Sup. Ct., Jan. 9, 2014), the court addressed whether a party had properly served an appeal by fax on the Office of the Attorney General, even though the rules required service by certified mail or personal delivery. The party claimed that because the Attorney General had actual notice of the appeal and had not been prejudiced by the failure to make proper service, her case should not be dismissed. The court rejected the plaintiff's argument, noting that at "its logical extreme" the argument would allow "service of the appeal on the agency by any means, including by a carrier pigeon, as long as the agency actually receives the appeal and is not prejudiced." (emphasis added). This, the court concluded, was not supported by statute or case law.

In summary, while courts have not directly addressed a situation where a party has attempted service using a pigeon, the disapproval of the method expressed by the few courts that have contemplated such a scenario means that it is probably is not advisable to do so.

Practically, service by pigeon is unlikely to catch on. The most apparent barrier to wide usage of homing pigeons is the fact that the person sending a document via pigeon must already have a pigeon in their possession that will return to the recipient. This suggests that a network of homing pigeons trained to deliver documents to law firms and courts must be supported by a secondary network of delivery personnel who take the pigeons from the recipients to the senders. Pigeons may be seen as redundant if a system for their physical delivery is already in place.

Another potential criticism of the practice is that even the smallest filing or item of correspondence is too large to be carried by a pigeon. The answer to this, however, is that these documents could be loaded onto tiny flash drives that could, in turn, be deposited into a pack that the pigeon can carry.

States considering permitting service via pigeon may be encouraged to learn that there are already legal barriers in place to prohibit interference with homing pigeons. In Pennsylvania, for instance, it is a summary offense to shoot, maim, or kill a homing pigeon. Similar restrictions exist in Michigan, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Laws like these may assuage concerns that interlopers will interfere with pigeons used for legal service.

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