with your argument next in case sixteen to fifty four water splashed vs men mr gaston thank you mr chief justice and may please the court at issue in this case is whether the hague service convention permits service of process by mail if the state of destination does not object our position is that such mail service is allowed and it's a three part argument first purely textual evidence of meaning shows that this reading of the treaty is at least reasonable second some additional considerations namely this court decision in flunk as well as the history of events leading up to the treaty yes do you agree with that proposition no we do not agree the text is wholly unambiguous we believe the text begins a very ambiguous looking at article a b in c where a uses the word sin and b in c use the word affect service and instantly just looking at that small area one says well wait what does sinned mean here does it mean sin to serve sin for non service sin for both purposes is it the same or different than to effect serve and we have a presumption that has been used in the statutory context the different words are usually going to mean different things it's not a era bubble presumption but even that presumption leaves ambiguity because it so why do you think the drafters use  two different phrase what's your best stance or the best there's a practical answer and then there's a legal answer the the practical answer and this involves the circumstances leading up to the treaty is that there were three prior treaties dating back to eight hundred ninety six where a french term address c was used in the analogous provision and that in french was also not a term of art for service there were two other french terms of art for service and the convention used no because see on and significance the on as terms for service and then in this section which was six one of the earlier treaties at least of hundred fifty four treaty it used the term address c and in context it was very clear that it meant service because there were other references to service later in that section and it was understood to mean service because the term in french was broad enough to cover service and what happened in one nine hundred sixty four during the drafting of the treaty adopted in one thousand nine hundred five they had to prepare for the first time an english version of the treaty because they would have to t french in english and as a practical matter what they did is they took that language and simplified the article to which it would be part of and it lost some of its context is it fair to say that your first argument with the first argument text but then you seem to mean that you went a little bit beyond text is one of your arguments that maybe send is ambiguous when you look at it when you look at b and c you know why they use the words and then for the it's not ambiguous an which has a right of objection by a state of destination so states that are party to the treaty can object to article ten a or ten b or ten c and if to name means sin for non service purposes it's basically saying ok you can send these judicial documents for unofficial non legal non binding purposes unless the state of destination objects there is a a body of  started out answering is a rule for interpreting the laws of the united states so what do we do in a situation where there might be a conflict between these two bodies of interpret standards and i think luckily this case i don't think rings up the conflict because the only way you remove the ambiguity in a put in a way against petitioners position is to take a canon that words usually mean different things and make it your rebuttable and that's that's not the law under under federal law this court has has not applied that canon in some situations and here you you get to a greater meaning by it and if i could carry out the answer to the state of destination objecting it would be very odd to put in a treaty a about service some provision that to allow states to object to the use of their mails for an official purposes it really i think most people would say well before the treaty i could use the mail for unofficial purposes after the treaty i want to be able to use the mail for an official purposes and even the  delegates of members who have met in the years after the treaty have said yes even if a state objects or not you can certainly use the mail for four unofficial purposes because that doesn't affect any sovereign interest of the state they don't have a need to object that structural argument which is part of federal law looking at the structure of treaties is enough i would i would say by itself to drastically reduce the ambiguity here and then any remaining nearly textually vanishes when you think about the entire treaty as a whole which is it's a treaty on service the title is the convention on the service abroad of judicial and extrajudicial documents the preamble discusses simple fine service expediting service making service more reliable and in that context i think the best that the respondent can get to is the idea well maybe there's still some remaining ambiguity because it certainly seems that that sin here is a rule of service and we have domestic examples where rules of service after they've made clear we're talking about service they use common verbs of transmission send deliver mail in texas you can affect service by mailing and so the verb is is male in that context the word sin in article to ne although this is a is a legal arguing this is not practically what happened but but but sindh is of is a perfect word for the directness of the transmission every other transmission in the treaty requires some sort of intermediary whether it's a central authority consulate or a diplomatic individual or channel or a judicial officer in the state of destination when you're talking about sending through the mail serving documents you've seen them and it's the only case where you can directly affects you a service the the other in terms of in terms of text till the context of certain other words also shows that sindh is used and meant as service there are three channels other than the central authority that are mentioned in the treaty the diplomatic channels postal channels and consular channels all three use the word channels and that's in articles nine and ten and then later in article eleven it talks about channels of transmission and then later in article twenty one it speaks of more generally methods of transmission and i think these are also contextual evidence that all the channels that have been discussed are service channels and then finally the if there is any ambiguity remaining the extrinsic evidence that this court has said we can consider at least absent whol unambiguous text is overwhelmingly in support of the idea that in fact at the time of drafting the the drafters and those who adopted it at that convention intended to allow service by ratified the treaty nearly half thirty have expressed their objection to mail by lodging a declaration with the government of the netherlands and there are a handful who have lodged a qualified objection where they say well yes mail is ok but if you do it this particular way so yes certainly that number indicates that and in some cases such as canada in this case their declaration that it in general that is not it because the convention has two provisions in articles fifteen and sixteen that enable a person to to potentially void a judgment or to extend the time to appeal if certain conditions are shown whether that could be introduced in a enforcement proceeding for example in canada if the judgment was sought to be enforced if i were on the other side i would be trying to argue article fifteen and sixteen and trying and trying to show there was a problem with the judgment but at least in the form state i think if if if those articles are not raised at the default judgment stage or within a reasonable time after the judgment  articles what are the article articles fifteen and sixteen what do they say so article fifteen per clude the entry of a default judgment depending on whether the form state and in this case that's the united states whether they have opted to go in the first half of article fifteen or the second half of article fifteen the first half of article fifteen base where disappears to raise the defense that they did actually receive as they can certainly raise it in the in the proceeding where the judgment was entered within a reasonable time after they got actual notice of the judgment and that's article sixteen specifically they have to show th ey didn't have noticed they have to show they had a promise facie defense and then they could get relief from the finale of it and if the court has no further questions i would reserve the remainder of my time thank you counsel it's goldenberg mr chief justice and may please the court article ten day of the hague service convention permits service through postal channels on persons abroad if the law the form state at the state where the case is pending authorizes such service and if the receiving state where the mail will be delivered hasn't objected to article ten a and i'd like to start with this permit authorized framework because i think there's been a lot of confusion in the lower courts on the subject question presented here as props phrasal in artfully in terms of authorization and it would be really helpful if the court would clarify this point article ten a says provided the state of destination does not object to the present convention shall not interfere with the freedom to send judicial documents by postal channels to persons abroad so it is not interfering with  freedom it is not the same thing as providing an affirmative authorization for service by mail that affirmative authorization has to be found elsewhere and the place where you find it is in the law of the form state so for instance in our federal system if you look at what four of the rules of civil procedure there is a subsection of all four that says or an international agreement permits but does not authorize service on persons abroad here are a bunch of things you can do and some of those options include service by mail using registered mail but by the court of the court service by mail if the district court judge in a particular case directs it and so on so that's where you get the authorization you have to form it has to authorize the service by mail on a person abroad at the other end of the process you have to see whether the receiving state has object to service by mail and as my friend indicated nearly half of the countries that have exceeded to ratify this treaty have indeed objected to service by mail some of them have given a sort of conditional objection that the only except that countries have made when they've stated whether they object article today or not simply state either we object to service by mail or we don't some of them don't actually use the word service many of them do more than more than half of them do some states that have not objected have also used the word service when they've made that statement so i think that is an indication one of many indications that other contracting parties to this convention like the united states itself understand that article ten is about service and not simply about some kind of informational mailing so as i said before we think it would be helpful if the court would clarify the permit authorize object framework the court of appeals decision that we think best captures this is the brock meyer decision from the ninth circuit which lays the south correctly and also has a very helpful discussion of how rule for interacts with the treaty beyond as my friend said there are a lot of textual indications here that this is a convention that is about service just to highlight one  he didn't touch on there's a structural argument which is that articles eight nine ten b ten c eleven are all about alternative channels for service and it would be very odd for this convention to suddenly jump to something that wasn't about service in article ten and then jump back again to service in ten ten c and eleven why do you think they used a different work like my friend correctly gave the reasons which is there is a historical reason and a practical reason the historical reason is that i think they simply carried over the french word address say from the one nine hundred fifty four civil procedure convention that replaced this convention replace the states that were parties to both address a had been understood by everyone and it was clear in context to capture service and so i think if you actually compare the language of the one nine hundred fifty four treaty and the language of article ten and french they're virtually identical it was just that the drafters carried it over and that that's the way that people understood it on a practical level i do think that sand is just a very natural way to refer to putting something in the mail and so it makes sense to use that verb there rather than a different for especially when you're talking about a situation in which the service can go directly from one party to another we think the contrary interpretations really don't work here but at the very least there's ambiguity in this treaty and at that point this court decisions are clear you turn to extreme six sources of information here each and every extrinsic source points strongly in the direction of the interpretation were  the draft convention and contemporaneous understanding of people who were there when it was drafted you have the consistent interpretation of the executive which is entitled to great weight and here has been completely consistent from the beginning till now you have the consistent interpretation of other contracting parties which this court has said are entitled to considerable weight and you have to have an expert consensus among scholars and so on and so affirming the corporal would take us out of step with the rest of the world seventy other countries or parties to the street or to this treaty and it could be an irritant if they think that we're not living up to our obligations it also would make service more difficult for us plaintiffs who are looking to serve defendants who are brought it would take away from them the ability to use the mails in situations where they might be trying to serve someone in a country where the central authority is slow or expensive and so for all those reasons we think that the court should reverse the judgment below if the court has no further questions thank you counsel which throu so if you look at the latin the obvious section of the trade on page eight of the joint appendix under the mistake i think that leading scholar maybe i'm wrong but i thought i read it of words but that the intent was clear in kind for all the reasons everyone else is exactly and it also uses a similar analysis that the dissenting opinion in the texas court of appeals basically you look at all this other things out they don't define sin and they don't do for a service so doesn't that automatically create an ambiguity and why isn't the end begin with the approach the way the other side says ok first of all i do not think that there is an ambiguity and in this particular point that we're all here talking about now and i say that but for the reasons that were cited by square in the first circuit opinion but then it is a crystal clear for them ok so then if you use the i don't really think it's a can and i think it's more of a rule of usage that if i alter the b word that i'm using throughout the document for everything in this convention relates to service and the whole purpose of it was to facilitate an international cooperation litigation no doubt about it and just just in this case the service is sought to be mean in canada and will be cases where and when it's a broad walk to serve somebody in the united states the whole no doubt about it and i would then i would suggest that sending documents that are ok to the question the follow up question from what you're saying your honor would be well what does it mean just service of initiating document service of process or service of any judicial documents an option the first part of the trade it talks about service of judicial documents and so it would seem to me logical but to include within and treated its focus in on service of documents internationally also service of documents after service of process and so from my perspective and i think i'm a fairly reasonable man and so from the reasonable person's perspective you would think that you would include service of other types of documents within a service of process treaty and now also there's a really important extrajudicial and i'm going to jump into some extra time  es that and a lot of other things ok so the history of this of this treaty was was such that they were they were really trying to kill this french method of service and france   ervice and so so defaults were being entered against parties that never actually got notice and so then then the united states said had passed that had passed public law eighty eight summons on an american or whatever person is in the united states so they could get to do szell assistance from the united states very easily ok so within the context of that act then the united states went sent the representatives to the had to start getting engaged with this this had conference to normalize international laws and so the motive was to get the other countries to make it easy for our citizens to serve overseas  and also to to push forward due process ok and so then the when the drafters that they got this this convention prepared that i just mentioned and that federal law doesn't have anything in it about about mail so the actual lawmakers of the united states had signed off on this treaty we're told by the people that participated in the in the convention draft and that that we're going to it wasn't all about service like you're saying your honor it was all it was in large part about due process and that was the only thing that we're giving up is the same thing that we gave up in this federal act of talking about did we give up or do you think they thought we were giving up the right authorize states to permit service by now service about how it is that we did that in the treaty  we by signing the treaty to give up the power of states to authorize the service by them service by mao is actually not talked about in the senate hearings there was one i'm asking you do you think it's a fair reading of the treaty for us to read it to constrict the rights of states to affect service consistent imam i'm sure some states somewhere like that could theoretically let's put it that way and so then you then you then your with up to the question of ok let me let me put it this way and brock meyer the court said that party cannot and therefore i win and in my case it's now in this in my case the texas rule the texas court of appeals the majority opinion actually sustained all four of my issues that were raised in the in the court of appeals and one of those was and by the way the dissents that i wiped that one issue but but the majority of that panel sustained it which was and that issue was whether or not texas law authorizes service by mail so if the  logic were to be adopted by this court you would basically say well yes the the treaty permits it permits it been serviced by mail if the local law allows it and so yes it's figure that stanching out but basically the question isn't the question at the start was right on it's whether or not the treaty authorizes service by mail that means the trade itself says you can serve percent of the treaty by senator and mail versus the sanction which is that the traded doesn't say that you serve by mail pursuant to the treaty rather that the treaty allows the other states or the federal government to pass a rule set so that the local law the local united so then you take that line of thinking and apply it to my case and you say ok well now the treaty doesn't authorize it because we follow that rockmart line of thinking but it has permitted of texas law allows it well to the  says under texas law the plaintiff conservative foreign defendant in several ways including by certified mail return receipt requested either by sending it to any defendant directly or if certain conditions are met by sending it to the secretary of state by complying with the provisions of any applicable treaty and if certain other conditions are met by other court ordered mean so and there's a citation to the two sections of the texas civil procedure act it's still it seems to be that texas law on its face authorised service by certified  procedure it's a title service a process in foreign countries right and provide it has all this stuff that can happen basically there's about six different ways that it can occur so why wasn't the service here pursuer it's one of those circuit case ok but the point here is that that if you follow the broader more line of thinking you have to to service by mail is proper if our local authority allows and in our case the majority opinion sustained all four points and one of those points was that texas law doesn't allow it and also the you know the technical and i don't mean to be overly technical but we didn't you didn't grant cert on the question of whether or not the texas law allows that we grant and whether or not the treaty authorizes it and so i've got that holding from the texas court texas law i think that's dispositive assuming you get to that and the only way you get to that is if you say that the tree if you say that the treaty authorizes service by mail you don't even get into that can of worms because the tr itself is the vehicle through which you're serving process ok if you follow the brought more line of thinking you say well now the treaty doesn't authorize it but it permits it then you run into the texas majority holding which is already ruled on that question and i think it's a problem for your position that no other court in the world has construed the treaty this way that's clearly a problem that's what  i mean i mean it's not to be first right now that is why i cited to the but i forgot what they call it but it's basically the restatement of law in europe that's why i cited to that to see what their mindset is and i don't know if you recall that quote in my brief but basically they will look at a document when they're interpret innit if it says x but everyone's intent was why they go use a completely different interpretive stance than we do no doubt about it it's a whole different mindset they're looking at this subjectivity of what everybody wanted and here because of our separation of powers  that's why go off in that area and all that other really interesting stuff and i think it's actually crucial here because one question i suppose might be whether that is in fact produce and the disparity in judgments but even suppose you're right that it is i mean these are treaties so the idea that you know we would be consistently interpreted in a treaty differently from the entire rest of the world would seem to create problems for our treaty making powers for our  our ability to conform with what our treaty partners expect i mean it will be sort of a problem for international relations what and then if we're like well we just interpret everything that d do believe that that that site that i did if i did some research to see how respected it was and i believe my ram wrong on that but i think it's on par with our restatement do they do they do what we do here well if you look at the vienna convention and someone brought that up by the way the van convention says i was supposed interpreter it is they actually do the opposite of that that quote that your that i gave you and your given back to me and then they focus hard on text just like i'm urging the court to do under our separation of powers doctrine so i surmise that that a fair amount of them do look at that that section but then a whole lot of them others also surely look at the vienna convention because they're the ones that most of the european countries if not all of them have actually signed off on it and the united states has not but it is it is a codification of customary international law and therefore you know if depending on how much emphasis we put on here's my number one sided all i was just trying to give a perspective on how you look at they have all these international cases against me and let's look at their mindset a little bit but one of the i mean if you are talking about and i think i think this is a distinction between statutes treaties we visualize treaties anyways close to two contracts and if you're talking about contracts it's very important to what the conduct and expectations of the parties were as they went into the contract and it's doesn't factor in the constitution and we adopt a treaty and make it's a federal law just like a federal statute except it's done through the press and etc and so it's really not yes it's like  posts service of process type document because it makes perfect to me and makes perfectly it's that's what makes it does it doesn't make sense to me to not include that in there and so if you use the canon color canon our method of usage  and different word law there's a different meaning if you can see the different meaning you don't you don't have an ambiguous situation here and so you darst bound by the constitution to interpret the words of the of the treaty and  say well it's not authorized so that's kind of how i analyze it and then and then i really want this to me is a really big point and i haven't articulated it well but the solicitor general sided to the senate record where the the international guys that went over to the had and brought this beautiful treaty that the put a whole lot of work and to do with the history of this this federal statute that i'm talking about everyone wanted to start cooperate and then they get before the senate to testify and then one of the senators is asking something like well what do we get out of this and then he's got this section in there it's on it's on it's so important to put it in my little book here ok that public law eight six one nine was a big deal back then because america says hey we're going to let the foreigners come over here go to district judge request an order to serve you know french petition or whatever and then after that and that was you know that was politically a big deal we open our doors and we want them to open their doors to us so they go they go they go prepare this treaty and then they come back and testified to to the people that are going to actually make our law and i tell them vets that's what happened and now we've got this male thing going on so from the lawmakers perspective they didn't actually hear that now again there is a bar review article that the same man that testified ammerman there's a little section in there which the solicitor general sets in their brief where they say something like service by mail he says and i read the article goes on and on about the straight a little bit mind numbing but it's and then he says article have an ambiguity here there was a change in usage that makes perfectly good stats to allow service of post service of process documents and you can't fix the bartleby the scrivener error because of and john vs korea in particular and then you have the other issue which is even if you go with this rock marson area then then texas has already passed on this question in texas law thank you mr just as you start with the brock meyer question do you agree with the government on the issue that the treaty only permits those serially authorize and then you are at the series position that the texas court has already said that under texas law you can answer this way yes just the sort of new york we petition agrees with the united states position and it points out actually an ambiguity in the word authorize which is the question presented  that the the that ambiguity is my responsibility because authorized can mean empower or it can mean permit and in this situation permit is what the brock meyer case reads it as it's what the united states just is correct and  we think that is correct because of the ambiguity in the statute of what the freedom to do things means and and i would also alert the court to some more specific discussion of that the permanent bureau of the hague conference puts out a handbook every so many years and the twenty sixteen edition which is the fourth edition at paragraph two hundred fifty seven discusses some ext from the nine hundred sixty four special commission discussions during the drafting making it clear that it was a two part test if the state doesn't object state of destination you have to look at the law of the form and see if it affirmative authorizes it moving then to the to the contention that the court of appeals here has already ruled that service by mail wasn't allowed under texas law that's that's the result of the holding because the court held that the treaty preempts texas law and it and if the treaty in fact prohibits service of process by mail it does preempt texas law and that's what the this court in slunk said it said that the treaty is mandatory and it preempts inconsistent methods of service under under state or federal law but that was not a determination that apart from the treaty service of process here was not consistent with texas law and is that preemption question before us no i would say it has been d the texas court of appeals has the same view which is that that if the treaty prohibits service by mail the fact that it's authorized under texas law is dead letter and therefore  and that is nowhere in the court of appeals decision and the texas state law determinations that we the texas state law that we sided pages nine in ten of the blue brief provide three or four ways in which service of process by mail on if you when you're the article can in fact permit service by mail then you'll go back to texas and you'll say see it permits express ly so the rest of the treaty doesn't preempt the provision that allows service by mail so texas law no longer prohibits yes yes so we should send it that it doesn't say that at all would article ten says  whether or not the convention shall interfere with a particular way so then you simply say if you're right ok the convention doesn't interfere but texas law can prohibit it yes you say it doesn't yes that is absolutely our position but the court of appeals said otherwise no the court of appeals held that the hague service convention prohibits service of process by mail and therefore it sustained the respondents challenge to the trial court judgment on the basis that there was no valid service of process because the service that was affected was prohibited by the hague service convention the  so i'm sorry you're saying it just never got to this question of what texas law says correct o n our blue brief it thirty two and thirty three i think it's clear not only did the negotiator for the united states tell the senate that this treaty involves service allows service by mail and the executive branch internally relayed that message to the to the president so it's very clear internally that the united states executive branch understood that the united states intent was it allows service by mail responding makes a distinction between service of process and service post answer documents i think while one might imagine a treaty that would do that this treaty doesn't make any internal distinctions between judicial documents that are process and other judicial documents with the limited exception of article fifteen that only talks about getting relief from a default judgment with respect to a summons not not being served and so as one lower court has said it would be very odd if article ten a was about service of every judicial document except process which is what would be required to go with respondents interpretation and unless the court has any further questions i would see the rest of my time thank you counsel cases submitted