California Family Law - Proof of Mail Service (FL-335) - The Law Offices of Andy I. Chen - YouTube

Hi everybody, it's Andy and welcome again to my  office in Modesto, California. I'm an attorney  

licensed to practice law in California as well as  New York. In this video we're going to go over a  

California-specific form and it's specifically a  proof of service unique to California family law  

cases. It's the form FL-335 proof of service by mail.  So a proof of service, if you've never kind of dealt  

with one or kind of seen one, uh, a proof of service is  basically a receipt showing that a particular  

document was sent from one party to another, or  from one party to the court, etc. So a proof  

of service is very, very important to fill out  because it's sort of a trail about what documents  

were delivered to who when. And as you can probably  imagine in court, if you've ever been to court, or  

if you're, you know, if you found this video you're  probably involved in a court case right now, dates,  

you know, you know, when stuff was sent to who and stuff,  that can actually be very, very important because,  

in law, there's a lot of, like, fixed deadlines, like  30 days to do this, two weeks to do this, etc.  

So dates, very, very important. In traveling the  kind of like northern part of California, I guess,  

doing family law cases in various counties, what  I've noticed is that a lot of people, particularly  

if they're doing it themselves, actually, especially  if they're doing their family law case themselves,  

they often don't know how to fill out a proof of  service, where to get it, why it's important, etc. So  

hopefully this video is going to go over all those  questions for you, so if you have a family law case  

of your own that you're dealing with, hopefully  after seeing this video, you'll know why the proof  

of service is so important. So the FL-335  form, which I'm going to go over here, the proof of  

service by mail, also has a counterpart. It's the  form FL-330. That's proof of service  

by personal service. The forms are very, very similar. I'm going to shoot a companion video to this one  

in which I go over the form 330 the personal  service one, but the forms are very, very similar so,  

you know, if you see this video and you see and you look at the other one, you'll kind of realize  

that both of them are kind of same so, but some people want the 335, the, the mail one, and then some people need  

the 330, the personal one. I'm going to  go ahead and shoot them both. So anyway, that  

said, that's kind of the introduction, I guess.  So as you can probably imagine, these forms are

probably going to be on the computer for the  most part. So if you guys will hop online with  

me right now, I will show you how to fill it out.  You can always fill these forms out by hand, but I  

personally type everything that I send to court  because they're, I kind of know that my handwriting  

is kind of bad, but yeah, so, guys, hop online  with me right now and I will show you how to do  

it. Okay everybody, welcome to the form FL-335 proof  of service by mail for California family law cases.  

As I described in the intro video, there is also a  companion form to this for personal service, it's  

the form FL-330 and I have a video on that  as well. So that said, this stuff right here should  

actually look fairly familiar to you if you have  seen any of my other videos or have filled out  

any other court forms before. So I'm gonna go  over this quickly. Name and mailing address of  

either the attorney who represents you or your  information if you don't have an attorney. Name,  

mailing address, phone number goes there. If you  have a fax, go ahead and put it down if you want  

the court to fax you anything, I suppose. I  usually don't put down my fax number here. There's  

no point because it's, you know, optional anyway,  but fax number, email address, if you want to put  

that down, again it's also optional, but if you have  an attorney, your name should go here. If you don't  

have an attorney, you can put down here "in pro per"  which is actually just a fancy way of saying that  

you're representing yourself. So over here in the  next kind of area, right here, this is where you  

need to put down the address of the courthouse  where your case is. You need to indicate the  

county, first of all, so right there, but as long  as you have the address number, the street name,  

the city, state, and zip code for the courthouse,  you should be fine. And next, right here, this is  

where you identify the parties. So the plaintiff  or the defendant, petitioner, respondent, whoever  

it is, put them in the appropriate box. So plaintiff  goes there, defendant goes here. If there is a third-  

party involved in your case for some reason -- most  often it is the county department of child support --  

you can go ahead and put them there as well. So  over here on the right, case number. If you're  

looking at this video, hopefully you know what your  case number is or you have a good idea of where  

you can go get that information. Case numbering  is not kind of uniform or standardized throughout  

California so each county does it differently. Over  here if you know, if you, whatever it is that you're  

serving is related to a hearing that is upcoming,  I would go ahead and put the date of that hearing,  

the time, and the courtroom or Department. Having  that information sometimes can be helpful, but if  

you don't know what it is or if it doesn't apply  to your situation, you can go ahead and leave this  

blank. So that said, this is like the standard  stuff on every or almost every California  

court form so hopefully this is not new to any  of you. So moving on, there are certain things in  

California that by law have to be served in person.  So temporary restraining orders are one of those  

things so if you actually are trying to serve a  temporary resorting, restraining order by mail, you  

actually can't. So don't use this form. Go ahead  and use the form 330, like I said, I have  

a companion video detailing how to fill in that  form. So, the next part actually is where a lot of  

people have problems and it's, I guess, it's like  a misunderstanding type of thing. So in order to  

serve documents in a legal case, you generally  have to satisfy three criteria. So the first is  

that you have to be at least 18 years old. That's  usually not a problem. I've never run into a case  

where a child was trying to serve something.  So number three, I guess, is that you have to  

be a resident or employed in the county where the  mailing took place. Generally this isn't a problem  

either. The problem usually is this one - so not a  party to the action or case. A lot of times people  

have never been to court before, they've never,  you know, had to, you know, sue somebody before,  

etc., so they don't really understand that, you know,  they can't serve papers themselves. So plaintiffs  

cannot serve defendants, defendants cannot serve plaintiffs, etc. Yeah, that's usually the biggest  

stumbling block. So the thing is, I usually take a  much broader view and I say "okay, the plaintiff's  

spouse can't serve either, the plaintiff's children  can't serve, the plaintiff's parents can't serve, etc.,  

etc. I usually get somebody who is not related  to the parties at all by blood, marriage, etc. to  

actually do the service. That's usually the safest  thing and generally people like that are not too  

terribly hard to find with a little bit of effort.  So that said, next part here is whoever actually  

does the service, they need to put down a mailing  address that they can be reached at. So I mean, it  

says residence and, and/or business, but, you know,  some people don't want to put down their residence  

address, some people don't want to get court papers  at their work because, like, you know, it begets a  

lot of rumors and stuff. So as long as you put down  a mailing address here that you, the person who did  

the service, can be contacted at later if need  be, that's generally sufficient. So, next part I  

personally think is the most important part of the  document and it's where you actually put down the  

description of what it was that you served. So my  recommendation here is to put down something that  

is sufficiently detailed where several months  down the road or maybe a year later when you  

look at this document, you can read whatever it was  that you typed here and instantly sort of remember  

what it was. So the thing is if you just put down  something general where it's like, you know, "letter  

to opposing party," I mean, unless your memory is  way better than mine, I personally would not be  

able to remember what "letter to opposing party"  meant. So I usually will put down dates, names, etc,  

to kind of, you know, make it, make the description  more specific. So the next part, most people who do  

proofs, or who do proofs a service like this, they  usually will have mailed the envelope themselves.  

So, you know, taking it to a post office, dropped it  in one of those blue mail boxes that are kind of  

scattered around town. That's usually what happens  and, you know, if that's the case in your situation,  

then go ahead and check box a here. However, if you  mailed the envelope in question from your work  

and your office has like a mail room and there's  like, you know, employees who just kind of, you know,  

process mail all the time, a lot of times they'll  have a basket or something where it's like, you know, the mail  

is picked up at three. You know, if you have mail  that has to go out, just toss it in the basket  

and then at three o'clock the postman comes and,  you know, takes, you know, the whole bag with him or  

something. If that's the case in your situation, go  ahead and check b like that. So number four, number  

four is also important, but the the basic idea  here is, I think it's self-explanatory. Whoever  

the envelope was addressed to, you put that there.  The address where the envelope was mailed to, put  

that there. And lastly, you put the date that the  mailing took place and then the city and the state  

where the mailing was made. So this is probably  gonna be the, you know, second most important bit,  

I guess, of the proof of service. You need to show  that the, the date was, like you need to show what  

the date was, I guess. Don't leave that blank. And  second-to-last, if you're serving some document  

that has a connection to children, so child  custody, visitation, or anything like that, go  

ahead and check this box also. California courts  generally tend to be, like they tend to be more  

cautious, I guess, treat cases involving children  more, they tend to give them more consideration,  

I guess, and that box is how you tell them that  "hey, you know, let's, you know, take a minute and  

do this properly because there are children  involved here." Lastly, what you need to do here  

is date it, put the date here, type your name and  then sign over on the right. This part is pretty  

self-explanatory also, except I do need to kind  of describe one thing about the date. You cannot  

declare under penalty of perjury something that  will happen. You can only do so for things that  

have happened. So the date of mailing back here  and the date down here, they can be the same date.  

However, this date cannot come after this one. So,  for example, you can't put down June 1, 2015 and  

up here put down June 10, 2015. That doesn't make  any sense because you're declaring under penalty  

of perjury on June the 1st that on June the 10th -- sometime in the future -- something was mailed.  

That doesn't make any sense. You can put it as June  the 1st, that's fine, like that or you can put down  

May 31st, that's fine too, but you just can't do  it where this date right here is in the future  

from this one, that's all. So hopefully that made  sense. This is the form FL-335 proof of service  

by mail in family law cases. I have a companion  video, like I said, that goes over the form 330 for

personal service and, yeah. Hopefully that made  sense and I will talk to you guys later. Thanks.