Former employees brought a motion seeking to validate or extend time for service of their statements of claim against remaining individual defendants after previous service attempts failed to comply with a court order and the Rules of Civil Procedure.
The court considered Rules 1.04, 2.01, 3.01 and 14.08 and the governing principles for extending time for service, focusing primarily on whether the defendants would suffer prejudice from the delay.
Although the plaintiffs’ counsel demonstrated significant delay and inadequate diligence in effecting service, the defendants provided no concrete evidence of actual prejudice resulting from the delay.
The court held that procedural rules should be applied liberally to allow disputes to be resolved on their merits.
Time for service was extended for two defendants and late service on another defendant was validated.
