Travelers Property Casualty Co of America v. Jones

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
TRAVELERS PROPERTY CASUALTY
COMPANY OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
v.
JAMES JONES,
Defendant.
Case No. 1:25-cv-00629-JLT-EPG
ORDER PERMITTING SUPPLEMENT IN
SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR SERVICE BY
PUBLICATION
(ECF Nos. 11, 15)
I. INTRODUCTION
In this civil action, Plaintiff Travelers Property Casualty Company of America seeks
declaratory relief against Defendant James Jones. (ECF No. 1). Asserting that it cannot serve
Defendant by conventional means, Plaintiff has filed a motion to serve Defendant by publication
or by serving his purported attorney, Michael Daurio. (ECF Nos, 11, 15).
Upon review, the Court will grant Plaintiff’s motion to the extent that it will permit
service on Defendant by publication.
II. BACKGROUND
Plaintiff filed this lawsuit on May 27, 2025. (ECF No. 1). Plaintiff seeks declaratory relief
regarding insurance benefits that Defendant seeks to recover in connection with a vehicle accident
occurring on May 31, 2019, in Chowchilla, California. (Id. at 5-6).
After Plaintiff was unable to serve Defendant, the Court continued the scheduling
conference and extended the deadline to serve Defendant. (ECF No. 8).
On October 24, 2025, Plaintiff moved “for an order allowing service of Travelers’
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complaint on defendant James Jones by publication pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
4(e)(1) and California Code of Civil Procedure Section 415.50 or to allow substitute service on
Michael Daurio, Esq., of BD&J,” i.e., Defendant’s purported attorney. (ECF No. 11).
After reviewing the motion, the Court issued an order noting the relevant legal standards
and permitted Plaintiff the opportunity to address certain issues in a supplement. (ECF No. 14).
Specifically, the Court noted that Plaintiff failed to (1) establish a cause of action; (2) identify a
named newspaper most likely to give actual notice to Defendant if service by publication were
permitted; and (3) cite applicable authority permitting it to serve Attorney Daurio on Defendant’s
behalf. (Id. at 3-4).
On December 19, 2025, Plaintiff timely filed a supplement addressing the cause-of-action
requirement and identifying a named newspaper. (ECF No. 15). However, Plaintiff fails to cite
any authority permitting service on Attorney Daurio.
Upon consideration of Plaintiff’s motion and supplement, the Court will grant Plaintiff’s
motion to the extent that it will permit Plaintiff to serve Defendant by publication; however, it
will deny the motion to the extent that Plaintiff seeks to serve Defendant by serving Attorney
Daurio.
III. LEGAL STANDARDS
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(e)(1) permits service on an individual defendant by
“following state law for serving a summons in an action brought in courts of general jurisdiction
in the state where the district court is located or where service is made.” Here, Plaintiff requests
permission to serve Defendant under California Code of Civil Procedure § 415.50(a)(1), which
provides as follows:
A summons may be served by publication if upon affidavit it appears to the
satisfaction of the court in which the action is pending that the party to be served
cannot with reasonable diligence be served in another manner specified in this
article and . . . [a] cause of action exists against the party upon whom service is to
be made . . . .
Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 415.50(a)(1).
The court shall order the summons to be published in a named newspaper,
published in this state, that is most likely to give actual notice to the party to be
served. . . . The order shall direct that a copy of the summons, the complaint, and
the order for publication be forthwith mailed to the party if his or her address is
ascertained before expiration of the time prescribed for publication of the
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summons. Except as otherwise provided by statute, the publication shall be made
as provided by Section 6064 of the Government Code unless the court, in its
discretion, orders publication for a longer period.
Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 415.50(b). In turn, § 6064 provides as follows:
Publication of notice pursuant to this section shall be once a week for four
successive weeks. Four publications in a newspaper regularly published once a
week or oftener, with at least five days intervening between the respective
publication dates not counting such publication dates, are sufficient. The period of
notice commences with the first day of publication and terminates at the end of the
twenty-eighth day, including therein the first day.
Cal. Gov’t Code § 6064.
Despite the provision of service by publication under California law, personal service is
the preferred method of service, and “[c]onsistent with the notions of fair play and due process,
substituted service by publication is ‘a last resort’ when ‘reasonable diligence to locate a person
in order to give him notice before resorting to the fictional notice afforded by publication’ has
been exercised.” Calvert v. Al Binali, 29 Cal. App. 5th 954, 963 (2018) (quoting Donel, Inc. v.
Badalian, 87 Cal. App. 3d 327, 332 (1978)). Accordingly, service by publication comes with
stringent requirements to establish both “reasonable diligence” and “a cause of action.”
Beginning with “reasonable diligence,” a court must be satisfied that a plaintiff has
expended reasonable effort in trying to locate a defendant.
“The term ‘reasonable diligence’ takes its meaning from the former law: it denotes
a thorough, systematic investigation and inquiry conducted in good faith by the
party or his agent or attorney (See Vorburg v. Vorburg [ (1941) 18 Cal.2d 794] at
p. 797 [117 P.2d 875]; Stern v. Judson (1912) 163 Cal. 726, 736 [127 P. 38]; Rue
v. Quinn [ (1902) 137 Cal. 651,] at p. 657 [70 P. 732]). A number of honest
attempts to learn defendant’s whereabouts or his address by inquiry of relatives,
friends, and acquaintances, or of his employer, and by investigation of appropriate
city and telephone directories, the voters’ register, and the real and personal
property index in the assessor’s office, near the defendant’s last known location,
are generally sufficient. These are likely sources of information, and consequently
must be searched before resorting to service by publication.” (See Cal. Judicial
Council Comment, West Ann.Code Civ.Proc. (1973 ed.) § 415.50, pp. 561–563.)
However, the showing of diligence in a given case must rest on its own facts and
“[n]o single formula nor mode of search can be said to constitute due diligence in
every case.” (Donel, Inc. v. Badalian (1978) 87 Cal.App.3d 327, 333, 150
Cal.Rptr. 855.)
Kott v. Superior Ct., 45 Cal. App. 4th 1126, 1137-38 (1996).
As for establishing “a cause of action,” a court must be satisfied that a cause of
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action exists in the case for purposes of establishing jurisdiction.
For the purpose of service by publication, the existence of a cause of action is a
jurisdictional fact. (Columbia Screw Co. v. Warner Lock Co. (1903) 138 Cal. 445,
448, 71 P. 498; Forbes v. Hyde, supra, 31 Cal. at p. 353.) ‘An affidavit in proper
form . . . is a jurisdictional basis of the order for publication: ‘(T)here must be an
affidavit containing a statement of some fact which would be legal evidence,
having some appreciable tendency to make the jurisdictional fact appear, for the
Judge to act upon before he has any jurisdiction to make the order. Unless the
affidavit contains some such evidence tending to establish every material
jurisdictional fact, the Judge has no legal authority to be satisfied, and, if he makes
the order, he acts without jurisdiction, and all proceedings based upon it are void.
(Citations.)’” (2 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (2d ed. 1970) Actions, s 639, pp. 1431—
1432.)
Harris v. Cavasso, 68 Cal. App. 3d 723, 726-27 (1977).
IV. PLAINTIFF’S MOTION
A. Reasonable Diligence
With these standards in mind, the Court turns to Plaintiff’s motion. Beginning with
“reasonable diligence,” Plaintiff’s counsel, NaQuia Brown, has provided a declaration outlining
various service attempts on Defendant. (ECF No. 11, pp. 7-9; see also ECF No. 15-2). For
example, the declaration describes one of Plaintiff’s attempts to serve Defendant as follows:
On June 6, 2025, Travelers attempted to serve defendant James Jones at his last
known address. This address was found by typing in Mr. Jones’s date of birth and
social security number in the Westlaw People Map report. The male at the address
informed the server that he did not know the defendant. Attached hereto as
Exhibit 1 is a true and correct copy of the declaration of due diligence detailing
the prior service attempt made to locate and serve Defendant.
(ECF No. 11, p. 9).
The declaration continues in this manner, listing over a dozen attempts to serve Defendant
between June 2025 to September 2025, and identifying the various types of information utilized
to try to serve Defendant for each attempt.
In summary, Plaintiff has made multiple efforts to ascertain an address for Defendant and
has repeatedly attempted to serve Defendant at the addresses that Plaintiff could find. The Court
concludes that Plaintiff has demonstrated reasonable diligence.
B. Cause of Action
Plaintiff’s complaint brings a cause of action for declaratory relief. (ECF No. 1, p. 6).
With its supplement, Plaintiff has submitted the declaration of its assigned claims adjuster, David
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Stein, regarding the insurance policy at issue and the underlying insurance claim involving
Defendant. (ECF No. 15-1, p. 1); see Colonize Media, Inc., 2021 WL 1839697, at *3 (“Generally,
it is the plaintiff who makes the affidavit as to the cause of action.”); Indian Hills Holdings, LLC
v. Frye, 337 F.R.D. 293, 304 (S.D. Cal. 2020) (“Affidavits by a plaintiff’s attorney have been
held insufficient to meet the jurisdictional requirement for a court to issue an order for
publication.”).
Among other things, the declaration describes the terms of the insurance policy, including
exclusions, and recounts Defendant’s demand for insurance benefits and the parties’ coverage
dispute. (ECF No. 15-1, pp. 2-3). Further, Plaintiff has provided legal argument in its supplement
explaining why it believes it has a meritorious cause of action for declaratory relief. (ECF No. 15,
pp. 4-6).
Based on the information provided, the Court concludes that Plaintiff has provided
sufficient evidence of the existence of a cause of action against Defendant to obtain service by
publication.
C. Newspaper
Under § 415.50(b), “[t]he court shall order the summons to be published in a named
newspaper, published in this state, that is most likely to give actual notice to the party to be
served.” On this issue, Plaintiff states as follows:
Based on the information obtained through Travelers investigation, Mr. Jones last
known addresses and last verified activity were locating with the San Joaquin
Valley area. Travelers database searches, including Westlaw People Map results
using Mr. Jones date of birth, identified San Joaquin Valley area as the most recent
region in which Mr. Jones resided or maintained contact. Additionally, the in-
person service attempt conducted on June 6, 2025, confirmed that the address
associated with Mr. Jones was located within San Joaquin Valley.
Accordingly, Travelers requests that the Court authorize publication in The Fresno
Bee, a long-standing newspaper of general circulation within San Joaquin Valley
that is widely distributed both in print and online. Given Mr. Jones last known ties
to the San Joaquin Valley area, publication in The Fresno Bee provides the highest
likelihood that Mr. Jones or someone acquainted with him will see the summons,
thereby satisfying the due process objective of providing the best notice
practicable under the circumstances.
(ECF No. 15, pp. 7-8).
Based on Plaintiff’s representations, the Court will permit Plaintiff to utilize The Fresno
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Bee for service.
D. Service on Attorney Daurio
Plaintiff alternatively seeks leave to serve Defendant through his purported attorney,
Attorney Daurio, who has asserted that he has not been authorized to accept service for
Defendant. (ECF No. 11, p. 2 – “Mr. Daurio has already confirmed that he is counsel for Mr.
Jones in this very action but has not been allowed to accept service.”). However, Plaintiff cited no
applicable legal authority for this means of service in its motion and declined to address this issue
in its supplement. Further, caselaw suggests that service upon Attorney Daurio would not be
proper in these circumstances. See Nhoung Van Nguyen v. Lucky, No. EDCV 18-1452 JGB SPx,
2018 WL 10014508, at *1 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 13, 2018) (“Under Rule 4(e), service for an individual
upon an agent can only be proper when the agent is ‘authorized by appointment or by law to
receive service of process.’ Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(e). Accordingly, service upon Ryan Miller,
Defendants’ purported counsel, is insufficient without any evidence that Miller was authorized to
receive service on behalf of Lucky. See J. and L. Parking Corp., Inc. v. United States, 834 F.
Supp. 99, 102 (S.D.N.Y. 1993) (noting an attorney does not become a client’s agent for service of
process simply because she represented the client in an earlier action).”).
Accordingly, the Court finds no basis to permit service on Attorney Daurio and will deny
the motion as to this request.
V. CONCLUSION
Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED as follows:
1. To permit Plaintiff sufficient time to achieve service, the deadline to complete service is
extended to April 6, 2026. Plaintiff shall file proof of service by no later than April 13,
2026.
2. Plaintiff’s motion is granted to the extent that the Court will permit service on Defendant
by publication and is denied to the extent that Plaintiff seeks to serve Defendant by
serving Attorney Daurio. (ECF Nos. 11, 15).
3. Plaintiff shall begin the process of serving Defendant by publication within thirty (30)
days of the date of entry of this order in accordance with the requirements of California
Civil Procedure Code § 415.50(b) and California Government Code § 6064.
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4. If Defendant’s address is ascertained prior to the expiration of the time prescribed for the
publication of the summons, Plaintiff is directed to forthwith mail Defendant a copy of the
summons, the complaint, and the order for publication. Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 415.50(b).
5. The initial scheduling conference is reset for May 15, 2026, at 10 a.m. To connect to the
telephonic conference, the parties shall dial 1-669-254-5252, (2) enter 161 733 0675 for
the meeting ID followed by #, (3) enter # when asked for the participant ID, (4) enter
740484 for the meeting passcode followed by #, and enter *6 to unmute. The parties shall
file a joint scheduling report at least 7 days before the scheduling conference.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated: January 5, 2026 /s/
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
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