In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________

No. 02-1675

RICHARD CLAUS,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

BRETT MIZE,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division.

No. 01-C-538—Robert L. Miller, Jr., Judge.

____________

ARGUED NOVEMBER 4, 2002—DECIDED JANUARY 23, 2003

____________

Before BAUER, KANNE, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

KANNE, Circuit Judge. Following an incident that

occurred during a training exercise, Richard Claus, a former officer for the Indiana Department of Correction

(“IDOC”), filed this § 1983 claim against fellow IDOC officer Brett Mize. The district court clerk entered a default

against Mize, but that entry was set aside when the district court determined that service of process upon Mize

was insufficient. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm

the decision of the district court.

I. History

At the time this suit was filed, both parties were employed by the IDOC as correctional officers. They worked,
2 No. 02-1675

however, at separate IDOC facilities: Mize was employed

at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility at Carlisle in

southwestern Indiana, while Claus worked at the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City in northern Indiana.

In June 1999, Claus attended an annual IDOC training

exercise in Michigan City for the use of a particular type

of police baton. Mize came from the Wabash Valley facility

to conduct the training. During the exercise, Mize struck

and broke a baton that Claus was holding, sending fragments of the broken baton into Claus’s face and causing

injury.

In June 2001, Claus filed suit in state court against

Mize, the IDOC, and the State of Indiana, alleging violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. A month later the case was

removed to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. The district court granted the

IDOC’s and the State of Indiana’s motion to dismiss, noting

that the case against Mize remained pending. Mize never

responded to the complaint, and the district court clerk

entered a default against him on October 25, 2001. Mize

responded on November 30, 2001, with a motion to set

aside the clerk’s entry of default and a motion to dismiss

for lack of personal jurisdiction based on insufficient service of process.

Claus had attempted to serve process on Mize pursuant

to Indiana Trial Rule 4.1(A)(1), which allows service by

sending a copy of the summons and complaint by certified

mail to the defendant’s “place of business or employment.”

Rather than sending the summons and complaint to the

Wabash Valley facility, however, Claus sent them to the

IDOC’s central office in Indianapolis, addressed to “Officer

F/N/U Mize c/o Indiana Department of Corrections, 302 W.

Washington Street, Indianapolis, IN 46204-2760.”

Phyllis Wakefield, a mailroom employee at the IDOC’s

central office, allegedly signed for the mail. In her declara-
No. 02-1675 3

tion, Wakefield stated that she was not familiar with Mize

and was not authorized by him to accept certified mail. She

asserted that upon receipt of certified mail for an employee, her general practice was to attempt to locate the employee even if she was not familiar with the individual.

If she was unable to locate the addressee, she would

generally return the mail to the post office. She maintained that she did not recall locating Mize, forwarding

any letter to him, or returning one to the post office.

According to Mize, he never received a copy of the summons and complaint, and Claus does not dispute this fact.

The district court found that service on Mize was insufficient. According to the court, Claus did not comply

with Indiana Trial Rule 4.1 because the summons and

complaint were sent to the IDOC’s central office while

Mize’s place of employment was the Wabash Valley facility. Consequently, the district court granted Mize’s motion

to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and set aside

the entry of default.

II. Analysis

We review a district court’s dismissal of a case for lack

of personal jurisdiction under a de novo standard. Logan

Prods., Inc. v. Optibase, Inc., 103 F.3d 49, 52 (7th Cir.

1996). The plaintiff bears the burden of showing that

personal jurisdiction over the defendant exists. Steel

Warehouse of Wis., Inc. v. Leach, 154 F.3d 712, 714 (7th Cir.

1998). Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(e)(1) provides

that federal courts will have personal jurisdiction over a

defendant if service is effected pursuant to the law of the

state where the district court is located. FED. R. CIV. P.

4(e)(1) (2002). Therefore, we must look to Indiana law to

determine if process was sufficiently served. Indiana

law provides:
4 No. 02-1675

Service may be made upon an individual . . . by: (1)

sending a copy of the summons and complaint by

registered or certified mail or by other public means by

which a written acknowledgment or receipt may be

requested and obtained to his residence, place of

business or employment with return receipt requested

and returned showing receipt of the letter.

IND. T. R. 4.1(A)(1). As noted above, Claus attempted to

serve process by sending the complaint and summons

via certified mail to the IDOC’s central office in Indianapolis rather than the Wabash Valley facility at which Mize

actually worked. Thus, the question before us is whether

the phrase “place of business or employment” can be read

broadly enough to include not only the place where a

defendant reports to work but also the headquarters of

the defendant’s employer.

As Indiana courts have yet to interpret the scope of

“place of business or employment,” Claus is unable to

offer any law to support his assertion that the phrase

should be read so broadly. Our interpretation of the

phrase “place of business or employment” leads us to

believe that a plaintiff must serve a defendant at a location where he actually reports for work. Had the drafters

of the rule wanted to allow service at a geographically

separated headquarters, language such as “at the individual’s employer” might have been more apt.

As constructed, it is our view that “place of employment”

connotes the physical location at which the defendant

works. From a practical standpoint, if a plaintiff were

allowed to serve a defendant at a geographically separated headquarters, the chances that the defendant

would fail to receive service in time to respond to a complaint would be greatly increased. This would be particularly so in large businesses and governmental organizations, like the IDOC, which may have scores of facilities
No. 02-1675 5

and thousands of employees. In this case, for example,

the IDOC operates 24 adult institutions scattered throughout Indiana and employs more than 8000 personnel in

those various institutions.

Therefore, we find that the phrase “place of business

or employment” should not be given the broad interpretation that Claus urges, and Claus’s attempted service at

the IDOC’s central office did not comply with the requirements of Indiana Trial Rule 4.1.

Claus next argues that even if he did not strictly comply

with Indiana’s service requirements, service was still sufficient under Indiana Trial Rule 4.15(F), which provides:

Defects in summons. No summons or the service thereof

shall be set aside or be adjudged insufficient when

either is reasonably calculated to inform the person to

be served that an action has been instituted against

him, the name of the court, and the time within which

he is required to respond.

IND. T.R. 4.15(F). We disagree.

First, it is not at all clear from Indiana case law that T.R.

4.15 applies to Claus’s situation. The Indiana Supreme

Court has explicitly stated that “T.R. 4.15(F) only cures

technical defects in the service of process, not the total

failure to serve process.” LaPalme v. Romero, 621 N.E.2d

1102, 1107 (Ind. 1993). Arguably, mailing the summons

and complaint to IDOC headquarters, a place where

Mize did not work, is more than a technical defect. Indeed,

in Robinson v. Turner, a case with some similarity to

this one, the District Court for the Southern District of

Indiana held that T.R. 4.15 did not apply when the plaintiff attempted to serve the defendants at a place where

they did not work because “failure to serve Defendants

at their place of employment constituted a complete failure of service of process rather than a technical failure
6 No. 02-1675

of service of process.” 886 F. Supp. 1451, 1458 (S.D. Ind.

1995).

Even assuming, however, that the defect here is merely

technical and that T.R. 4.15 could apply, it would still

be the case that Claus’s attempted service of process at

the IDOC’s central office in Indianapolis could not be

“reasonably calculated to inform the person to be served.”

IND. T.R. 4.15(F). In arguing that service was sufficient,

Claus notes that the training session at which the incident occurred was a mandatory IDOC exercise, and that

Mize was sent there by the IDOC to conduct the exercise.

Further, he asserts that he did not know anything

about Mize other than that he was employed by the IDOC.

According to him, it would be too great a burden to require

him to serve process at each individual IDOC facility;

thus, Claus maintains that it was reasonable for him to

send the summons and complaint to IDOC headquarters.

We do not find this argument availing. Claus would

not be required to serve process at every IDOC location,

just the location where Mize actually worked. As the district court noted below, it is not unfair to require a plaintiff who chooses to serve a defendant at his place of employment to serve the defendant where he actually works.

That is especially true here. Claus himself was an IDOC

correctional officer for nine years, so we doubt it would

have been excessively burdensome for him to discover

where Mize actually reported to work. Further, to satisfy

the “reasonably calculated” requirement, there must be

a “reasonable degree of certainty” that the method chosen

will actually get the papers to the defendant. Robinson,

886 F. Supp. at 1455. As we noted above, in large organizations, like the IDOC, serving process at the central

office will greatly decrease the likelihood that it will

ever reach the defendant. And Claus, as an IDOC officer

himself, should have known that IDOC officers do not

generally receive mail at the central office and there-
No. 02-1675 7

fore that the likelihood Mize would receive the complaint

and summons was diminished substantially by sending

them to the IDOC’s headquarters in Indianapolis.

III. Conclusion

For the reasons discussed above, we agree with the

district court’s finding that there was insufficient service

of process. Therefore, the district court’s decision to set

aside the clerk’s entry of default and grant Mize’s motion

to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction is AFFIRMED.

A true Copy:

Teste: 

 ________________________________

Clerk of the United States Court of

Appeals for the Seventh Circuit 

USCA-02-C-0072—1-23-03