When Do You Need to Have Documents for a Summons Translated?

A person does not need to be a United States resident or citizen to be sued in a U.S. court of law.  If a personal jurisdiction exists proclaiming the defendant to be subject to suit within the United States, one of the initial steps of the legal process is to serve him with a summons.  This process is also integral for common civil actions such as initiating a divorce.  Serving a foreign person or organization summons may seem complex, but it need not be.

The Hague Service Convention sets the international standards for cross-border disputes.  There are several of these Conventions, with the first settled as treaters during the Hague Peace Conferences in 1899 and 1907.  Those first treaties established laws and customs of wars between nations.  The Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters, or just referred to as the “Hague Service Convention,” was passed in 1965 to provide litigants reliable and efficient means of serving court documents to parties residing or working abroad.  As long as you have an accurate address for the defendant, the Hague Service Convention rules apply.

Of course, it seems reasonable that official documents distributed across borders should require translation, and in fact, the Hague Service Convention does require this.  Specifically, it allows the receiving country’s laws to require any foreign summons delivered to a person or organization to be translated into the recipient country’s national language.

The question becomes, at what stage should you have documents for a summons translated?

The first step will be compiling documentation to submit a complaint against the defendant with the courts.  Documents filed in a U.S. court of law must be submitted in English.  Since a complaint generally only contains statements by the Plaintiff, these documents are most commonly in English already.  However, there are circumstances where a U.S. citizen may not speak English, and some components of the narrative would need to be translated for inclusion in the complaint.  Once the complaint is made, it must be served with a summons to the defendant.

Rule 4 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for the United States District Courts outlines the requirements for serving a summons:  “On or after filing the complaint, the plaintiff may present a summons to the clerk for signature and seal.  If the summons is properly completed, the clerk must sign, seal, and issue it to the plaintiff for service on the defendant.  A summons–or a copy of a summons that is addressed to multiple defendants–must be issued for each defendant to be served.”

Some clerks have been known to ask that the summons package be translated to the defendant’s home country’s national language before providing approval.  This is not the case.  By reading Rule 4 carefully, it is clear the court clerk does not have the discretion to decide whether or not to “sign, seal, and issue” the summons as long as the application is filled out correctly–and doing so does not require documents be translated into the target language.

Instead, once the clerk has issued the summons, the entire packet should then be translated to the target language.  While most receiving countries will require this under the Hague Service Convention, it is the plaintiff’s responsibility to meet that criteria, not the clerk signing the summons.  There are two reasons for this is the right stage for translation:

• First, the translated version must include the signed and sealed summons.
• Second, if it were translated before signing and sealing, it would need to go back to the translation company to obtain the complete translation, thus increasing the time and money allocated to the work.

The best way to handle translations for cross-border litigation is to work with a translation company experienced in that line of work.

At The Perfect Translation, we combine language proficiency with legal expertise to provide you with the most accurate legal translations of your important documents.  Our professional translators know how to file complaints and summons for cross-border litigation and make sure they are completed correctly to meet the requirements of the U.S. court system and the foreign country’s legal bodies.  Contact us today to learn more about The Perfect Translation and get a free quote!