Background
The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed a $154,661.25 default judgment arising from a 2015 Gillette car accident, holding that the plaintiff made a sufficiently diligent search for the defendant before using Wyoming’s nonresident-motorist statute. Samantha Ritter sued William Lopez four years after the accident. Campbell County sheriff’s deputies tried several times to serve Lopez at the address in the accident report but learned the property was vacant. Ritter then served the Wyoming Secretary of State and mailed the pleadings by certified mail to Lopez’s last known address under Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 1-6-301.
The district court initially questioned whether Ritter had shown a diligent search. Her counsel supplied a declaration, and the clerk entered default in 2020. After the case sat idle, the district court dismissed it without prejudice in 2023, then granted Ritter relief under Wyoming Rule of Civil Procedure 60 and reinstated it. The court later entered the default judgment. Lopez moved under Rule 60 to set the judgment aside, arguing mistake, surprise, excusable neglect, and other grounds, but the district court denied relief. On appeal, he challenged service, personal jurisdiction, reinstatement of the case, and the refusal to undo the default.
The Court’s Holding
Justice Kari Jo Gray, writing for a unanimous court, held that Ritter satisfied the due-diligence prerequisite for substituted service. Wyoming’s nonresident-motorist statute treats use of Wyoming roads as an appointment of the Secretary of State to receive process when the motorist cannot be served personally in Wyoming. Although the statute does not expressly say “due diligence,” Wyoming precedent requires a plaintiff first to make a reasonable, fact-specific effort to locate the defendant. The standard is not every conceivable search; it is diligence reasonably calculated to find the person under the circumstances.
The settled record showed much more than a single failed visit. Deputies attempted service repeatedly; no forwarding address was available from the Postal Service; Ritter sought address information from Lopez’s insurer; calls to his last known number went unanswered; and counsel hired a person-search service, which produced a Utah lead that proved to be someone else. Those steps were sufficient, so service was valid and the district court acquired personal jurisdiction. The Supreme Court declined to decide Lopez’s separate constitutional claim that mailing papers to a known vacant address denied due process because he had not raised that claim below. His statutory service argument survived waiver only because defective service would present a jurisdictional problem.
The court also held it lacked appellate jurisdiction to review the earlier order reinstating Ritter’s case. Lopez’s notice of appeal identified only the order denying his own Rule 60 motion, not the reinstatement order, and his appendix and trial-court motion likewise omitted that challenge. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to set aside the default. Lopez’s arguments depended largely on his assertion that service was invalid, which the court rejected. Wyoming’s preference for merits decisions did not independently establish excusable neglect or another Rule 60 ground, and the fact that Ritter had earlier obtained Rule 60 relief did not entitle Lopez to the same result.
Key Takeaways
- Before using Wyoming’s nonresident-motorist statute, a plaintiff must make a reasonable, circumstance-specific effort to locate the defendant; repeated service attempts, postal and insurer inquiries, phone calls, and a commercial person search collectively satisfied that duty here.
- A statutory service defect affecting personal jurisdiction may be reviewed even if not preserved, but a distinct due-process objection to the method of notice can be waived when it was not presented to the district court.
- A Wyoming notice of appeal perfects review only of the orders it identifies. Naming a later Rule 60 order did not give the Supreme Court jurisdiction to review an earlier reinstatement order.
- The preference for resolving cases on the merits does not itself justify relief from default; the moving party still must prove a ground under Rule 60 and good cause under Rule 55(c).
Why It Matters
For Wyoming litigators, the opinion supplies a practical record-building guide for substituted service after a motor-vehicle accident. Counsel should document each search step before invoking § 1-6-301, including the dates and results of sheriff attempts, forwarding-address checks, insurer contacts, telephone outreach, database searches, and investigation of potential leads. An affidavit that incompletely describes those efforts can invite a jurisdictional challenge even when the underlying work was adequate.
The decision also highlights two appellate traps. Constitutional notice theories should be stated expressly in the Rule 60 motion and argued at the hearing, rather than left implicit in a complaint about actual notice. And when a party wants review of both an underlying order and a later post-judgment ruling, the notice of appeal must identify each appealable order. A broad merits argument cannot cure that jurisdictional omission.