Bradley C. Lewis v. Lily T. Ojano-Bracco; Mountain West IRA, Inc.; Angelina M. Sharman; and James R. Sharman (Appeal from Jefferson Circuit Court: CV-17-900540).

Rel: May 9, 2025

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern
Reporter. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts,
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SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA
OCTOBER TERM, 2024-2025

_________________________

SC-2024-0534
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Bradley C. Lewis

v.

Lily T. Ojano-Bracco, Mountain West IRA, Inc., Angelina M.
Sharman, and James R. Sharman

Appeal from Jefferson Circuit Court
(CV-17-900540)

MITCHELL, Justice.

Bradley C. Lewis appeals to this Court from the Jefferson Circuit

Court judgment denying his Rule 60(b)(4), Ala. R. Civ. P., motion. In that
SC-2024-0534

motion, he sought to set aside a default judgment that the trial court had

entered against him. He argues that he was unaware of this case and

that he was not appropriately served. We determine, however, that

service was proper, and we therefore affirm the judgment.

Facts and Procedural History

In February 2017, Lily T. Ojano-Bracco, Mountain West IRA, Inc.,

Angelina M. Sharman, and James R. Sharman ("the plaintiffs") sued

Lewis, in addition to Birmingham Income Property, LLC ("BIP"), MAC,

LLC, and Bryan Conwill. The plaintiffs alleged that BIP, of which Lewis

and Conwill were owners, had defrauded them.

In June 2017, a process server attempted to serve Lewis. The

process server delivered a summons and complaint to Xavier Young,

Lewis's stepson, at 6276 Letson Farms Drive.1 Lewis had lived at this

address with his wife since 2010, and Lewis himself testified that this

was his "address on record." The Letson Farms address was the marital

home for Lewis and his wife until at least their separation date of

December 1, 2018.

1An executed return on service, dated June 17, 2017, lists the
recipient as "Xavier Lewis," but this appears to refer to Xavier Young.

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Around this time, Lewis also repeatedly represented that he

resided at the Letson Farms address. He listed the address on his tax

return in at least 2017, 2018, and 2019, and he also did so in a 2019

bankruptcy filing. He provided the address to the Alabama Secretary of

State when registering as an agent for two separate companies between

2017 and 2020. And he accepted service in an unrelated suit at the

Letson Farms address in 2018.

Young, who accepted the summons and complaint at issue here,

also appears to have been living at the Letson Farms address in 2017.

He had listed the address as his own during his divorce proceedings in

June 2016, and he did so again in an application for a certificate of title

a few years later. And he was evidently staying at the Letson Farms

address on several occasions in 2017 because he accepted a summons on

Lewis's behalf four times that year.

Nevertheless, despite all the evidence linking Lewis to the Letson

Farms house, he did not respond to the plaintiffs' complaint or the

summons delivered there in June 2017. And he continued to ignore years'

worth of motions, notices, and other papers that the plaintiffs and the

trial court mailed to him at the Letson Farms address. Indeed, between

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June 2017 and April 2023, Lewis failed to respond to summonses in at

least five separate suits in which he was named.

In May 2021, after a hearing, the trial court entered a default

judgment in favor of the plaintiffs against BIP, Lewis, and Conwill. Still,

Lewis did nothing. Finally, in June 2022, the plaintiffs found another

address for Lewis. They then sent Lewis two letters, two motions to

compel, a motion to show cause, and a notice of service at this second

address. Lewis again did nothing, and he later testified that he would

not have opened any mail from the plaintiffs because he does not open

mail from "debt collectors."

In March 2023, Lewis received a notice of garnishment at the

second address. He admits to seeing this notice, but he did not respond.

It was only that April, when the sheriff personally served Lewis with a

court order finding him in contempt and ordering him to appear, that

Lewis finally responded. Lewis alleged that this was his first notice of

the plaintiffs' suit against him.

Lewis filed a Rule 60(b)(4) motion in the trial court to set aside the

default judgment. He based this motion on his own testimony, asserting

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that he was never properly served with process. After a hearing, the trial

court denied Lewis's motion. Bradley appealed to our Court.

Standard of Review

We review a denial of relief under Rule 60(b)(4) de novo. Allsopp v.

Bolding, 86 So. 3d 952, 957 (Ala. 2011).

Analysis

Rule 4, Ala. R. Civ. P., governs our analysis here. In relevant part,

that rule provides that service of process is valid if performed "at the

individual's dwelling house or usual place of abode with some person of

suitable age and discretion then residing therein." Rule 4(c)(1). The

plaintiffs allege, and Lewis denies, that the Letson Farms address was

Lewis's "usual place of abode." Similarly, the parties dispute whether

Young "resid[ed]" at the Letson Farms address. We discuss these two

issues below.

A. The Letson Farms Address Was Lewis's Usual Place of Abode

Courts look to the facts of each case to determine a party's "usual

place of abode." Allsopp, 86 So. 3d at 962. And they analyze those facts

while "mindful that the purpose of Rule 4 is to ensure that service is

reasonably calculated to provide a defendant with actual notice of the

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action." Id. (citing Karlsson v. Rabinowitz, 318 F.2d 666 (4th Cir. 1963),

and Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Tr. Co., 339 U.S. 306, 314

(1950)).

The evidence indicates that, as of 2017, the Letson Farms address

was Lewis's usual place of abode. He listed the address on his tax

returns. He did the same in a later bankruptcy filing. And he provided

the address to the Secretary of State when registering as an agent for his

various companies. He himself testified that the Letson Farms address

was his "address on record." And he even personally accepted service of

process -- in yet another suit -- at that address in 2018.

In addition, though we have not previously held so, a married man's

marital home, for purposes of service of process, is presumed to be his

usual place of abode. Several of our sister courts have reached this

conclusion, and we find their analysis persuasive. See, e.g., Fassett v.

Evans, 364 S.C. 42, 47, 610 S.E.2d 841, 844 (Ct. App. 2005) (citing 62B

Am. Jur. 2d Process 210 (1990)); CC Home Lenders v. Cioffi, 294 A.D.2d

325, 325, 742 N.Y.2d 101, 103 (2002) (holding that marital residence

remained defendant's "usual place of abode" after he left to live with his

mother). Therefore, because Lewis and his wife did not officially separate

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until December 2018, the marital home at the Letson Farms address was

his "usual place of abode" in June 2017.

This is true even though Lewis may have been renting a separate

apartment when the plaintiffs initiated this suit. A person can have

"more than one 'usual place of abode,' provided that each contains

sufficient indicia of permanence." Allsopp, 86 So. 3d at 961-62. The facts

above indicate that the Letson Farms address was permanent enough for

Lewis to provide it to the IRS, the Alabama Secretary of State's office,

and the bankruptcy court during this period. This satisfies our law and

confirms that this address was sufficiently his "usual place of abode." See

id. at 962 (holding that the mere existence of a romantic relationship with

the property owner, along with shopping receipts showing the defendant

was in the area, was sufficient to establish a usual place of abode).

B. Young Was a Person of Suitable Age and Discretion Then
Residing at the Letson Farms Address

Just as we look to the facts of the case to determine the defendant's

"usual place of abode," we likewise look to the facts to determine whether

the recipient sufficiently "resid[ed]" there to accept service. See Allsopp,

86 So. 3d at 962; see also Heald v. Heald, 363 So. 3d 1014, 1015 (Ala. Civ.

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App. 2021). Based on the facts here, Young, an adult child who accepted

service for Lewis, resided at the Letson Farms address as Rule 4 requires.

We have had few occasions to set a clear standard for deciding how

much connection to the home is needed for an adult to sufficiently

"resid[e]" there for Rule 4 purposes. Other jurisdictions have varying

approaches to this question. Some of our sister courts have even found

that adult children satisfy the requirements of Rule 4 when they merely

come home to visit. See M. Lowenstein & Sons, Inc. v. Austin, 430 F.

Supp. 844 (S.D.N.Y. 1977); see also Plushner v. Mills, 429 A.2d 444 (R.I.

1981). But other courts, echoing the rule's text and various legal

scholars, stress that the recipient must actually live in the same place as

the defendant to be served. See Bible v. Bible, 259 Ga. 418, 418, 383

S.E.2d 108, 110 (1989); see also 4A Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller

& Adam N. Steinman, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1096 (4th ed.

2015).

We need not definitively settle this split -- Young "resid[ed]" at the

Letson Farms address under either definition. In our view, an adult child

satisfies Rule 4's requirement when he represents, on official

documentation, that he lives at the family home. If someone listing an

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address is sufficient "indicia" of permanence to establish his "usual place

of abode," it is equally sufficient to establish that an adult child

"resid[es]" at his parent's home. Allsopp, 86 So. 3d at 961-62. And, just

as a person may have more than one "usual place of abode," this remains

true even if the adult child has more than one residence. Id.

Young held out to the world, including on official documents, that

he resided at the Letson Farms address. During his 2016 divorce

proceedings, Young represented the Letson Farms address as his own in

sworn interrogatories. He again listed it as his address a few years later

on an application for a certificate of title. And, further proving that he in

fact resided at the Letson Farms address, Young accepted service on

Lewis's behalf on four separate occasions over the course of 2017.

Consequently, he was an appropriate person to receive service for Lewis

at the Letson Farms home.

Conclusion

The Letson Farms address was Lewis's "usual place of abode." And

Young, an adult child of Lewis's wife, was a person of suitable age and

discretion who resided at the Letson Farms address. For that reason,

when Young accepted service from the plaintiffs on Lewis's behalf, the

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plaintiffs properly served Lewis for the purposes of Rule 4. Accordingly,

the trial court was correct to deny Lewis's Rule 60(b)(4) motion, and we

affirm the judgment against him.

AFFIRMED.

Stewart, C.J., and Wise, Sellers, and McCool, JJ., concur.

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