Court Opinion

ID: 9838644
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-07 14:00:40.4058+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:42:12.193577
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-10839     Document: 37-1     Date Filed: 09/07/2023   Page: 1 of 4

                                                   [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 23-10839
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

       TOMAS MIKO,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       REPRESENTATIVE VERNON JONES,
       in his individual and oﬃcial capacities,

                                                   Defendant-Appellant.

                           ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Northern District of Georgia
                    D.C. Docket No. 1:20-cv-02147-SDG
USCA11 Case: 23-10839      Document: 37-1      Date Filed: 09/07/2023     Page: 2 of 4

       2                      Opinion of the Court                  23-10839

                            ____________________

       Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and JORDAN and BRANCH, Cir-
       cuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Vernon Jones, a former Georgia state representative, ap-
       peals the denial of his motion for relief from the default judgment,
       Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(4), entered in favor of Tomas Miko. Jones ar-
       gues that the default judgment is void for lack of service of process.
       We affirm.
               We review the denial of a motion to vacate a default judg-
       ment as void for lack of service of process de novo. De Gazelle Grp.,
       Inc. v. Tamaz Trading Establishment, 817 F.3d 747, 748 (11th Cir.
       2016). Whether the requirements of service of process were met
       involves questions of law and fact, see In re Worldwide Web Sys., Inc.,
       328 F.3d 1291, 1299 (11th Cir. 2003), and we review findings of fact
       only for clear error, Mitchell v. Hillsborough Cnty., 468 F.3d 1276,
       1282 (11th Cir. 2006). Personal delivery of a copy of the summons
       and complaint is a valid method of service. Fed. R. Civ. P.
       4(e)(2)(A); O.C.G.A. § 9-11-4(e).
              The district court did not err in ruling that the default judg-
       ment is not void. Abundant evidence established that Miko
       properly served Jones, and that evidence supports the finding that
       Jones’s story to the contrary—including that he was unaware of
       this lawsuit for nearly three years despite it being publicized in the
       news—was not credible.
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       23-10839               Opinion of the Court                         3

              At the hearing on Jones’s motion, Miko’s attorney stated
       that he sent emails to Jones’s official email address, but Jones said
       he “didn’t even know that email existed.” Miko’s attorney stated
       that he left a voicemail with Jones’s state capitol office, but Jones
       said he did not recall receiving the message. Miko’s attorney and
       the district court mailed several documents about the order of de-
       fault and motion for default judgment to Jones at multiple ad-
       dresses including his address in Lithonia, which was the home ad-
       dress he provided to his political party, but Jones said that he could
       not recall receiving any documents. Jones maintained that he
       learned about the lawsuit on the day the district court entered the
       default judgment when his friend texted him a news article about
       it. Miko’s process server attempted to serve Jones twice—once at
       Jones’s state capitol office when he was not there and once at his
       Lithonia address, where a woman answered the door and denied
       that Jones lived there even though the process server, who had
       studied Jones’s image and voice, saw a man matching Jones’s de-
       scription inside the home and a car with a “Vernon Jones for Sen-
       ate” bumper sticker parked outside the home.
              Convinced that Jones “clearly wasn’t intending to be
       served,” Miko hired a private investigator with a military intelli-
       gence background to serve Jones. The investigator attested that on
       November 28, 2020, he followed a man matching Jones’s descrip-
       tion from a home on Moreland Avenue, which Jones admitted he
       owned, to a shopping plaza about 13 miles away. The investigator
       greeted him, “Mr. Jones, how are you today, sir,” and heard the
       individual respond in a voice that matched Jones’s voice. Jones
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                  23-10839

       accepted service but then denied that he was “Vernon” Jones. Jones
       argued that he could not have been the “Mr. Jones” who traveled
       from his Moreland Avenue house to the shopping plaza because he
       flew that day from Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta and, after arriving
       around 2:20 p.m., visited a restaurant in downtown Atlanta, where
       his bank statement confirmed he spent about $30.
               We cannot say the district court committed clear error. The
       district court determined that, although Jones’s testimony about
       the flight and restaurant was credible, there still were “lots of hours
       in that day that [were] unaccounted for” by his explanation, so it
       credited the declaration of the private investigator and the testi-
       mony of Miko’s attorney. See United States v. Rodriguez, 398 F.3d
       1291, 1296 (11th Cir. 2005) (“Where the factfinding resolves a
       swearing match of witnesses, the resolution will almost never be
       clear error.”). Because the record supports the finding that Jones
       was properly served, Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(e); O.C.G.A. § 9-11-4(e), the
       default judgment against him is not void, Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(4).
              We AFFIRM the denial of Jones’s motion for relief from the
       default judgment.