Stebnicki v. Wolfson

Richard Stebnicki (plaintiff) was injured in an automobile accident involving a car driven by Samuel Wolfson (defendant) and owned by RD&G Leasing, Inc. (RDGL) (defendant). Stebnicki filed a personal-injury suit against Wolfson and RDGL in Florida. Within 120 days of the filing of Stebnicki’s complaint, Wolfson and RDGL were both personally served in their respective home states. The process servers who served Wolfson and RDGL completed returns-of-service, also called affidavits-of-service, but failed to file them with the Florida court. Wolfson and RDGL filed a motion to quash service-of-process, alleging that they had not been served within 120 days of the filing of Stebnicki’s complaint. After a hearing, which Stebnicki did not attend, the court rendered an ex-parte order dismissing Stebnicki’s action for untimely service-of-process. Stebnicki alleged that he did not receive notice about the motion-to-quash hearing. Subsequently, Stebnicki discovered the returns-of-service had not been filed with the trial court. Stebnicki filed a motion to set aside the ex-parte dismissal order. At the hearing on Stebnicki’s motion, the trial court refused to accept the returns-of-service Stebnicki submitted because the returns-of-service were not in the court’s file and had not been provided to Wolfson or RDGL for review. The trial court denied Stebnicki’s motion to set aside the ex-parte dismissal order. Stebnicki appealed.