Texas Bill HB- 1989 was filed on 02/27/2013

The bill was read and referred to Judiciary & Civil Jurispridence 03/05/2013 relating subsitute service of a citation through a social media site i.e. FaceBook.

The bill was entered by a recently elected Jeff Reach, who was an associate at a Dallas, TX law firm. He is a Republican representing the Plano, TX area. If passed, Texas would be the first state to officially permit service of process via social media. England, Austrailia and New Zealand has already permited service via FaceBook etc, when all other manners of service has failed.

The bill proposes that if the courts find:

1. the defendant maintains a site on social media
2. the social media profile matches the defendant
3. defendant regulary gets on the social media site
4. defendant could reasonably expect notice if sent to the social media account.

United State courts have had this issue before them in the past but have been reluctant to move forward.