Short answer. Yes. If the defendant refuses to receive and sign for the summons, the server may simply leave it within the defendant's view and presence, and that still counts as valid personal service under this rule, without needing to attempt delivery again later.
What the law says
Whenever practicable, the summons shall be served by handing a copy thereof to the defendant in person and informing the defendant that he or she is being served, or, if he or she refuses to receive and sign for it, by leaving the summons within the view and in the presence of the defendant.
Rule 14, Section 5 — Service in person on defendant. Read the full provision →
The preferred method: handing it over in person
Whenever practicable, personal service means handing a copy of the summons directly to the defendant, coupled with informing the defendant clearly that he or she is being served with legal process. This is the most straightforward and least contestable way to accomplish service, since it leaves little practical room to dispute afterward that the defendant knew a case had actually been filed against them.
The refusal scenario
The rule anticipates that a defendant may refuse to receive and sign for the summons — a common and entirely understandable instinct for someone who does not want to be considered formally served with a lawsuit. Rather than treating that refusal as blocking valid service altogether, the rule provides that the server may instead simply leave the summons within the view and in the presence of the defendant at that moment.
Why leaving it in view still counts
The underlying logic is that once the defendant is aware a summons is being tendered to them, and is within sight of the actual document, the core purpose of personal service — giving genuine actual notice of the case — has been substantially achieved, even if the defendant stubbornly declines to physically take hold of the papers or put a signature on any acknowledgment slip.
What this means for defendants and process servers
A defendant cannot defeat valid service simply by refusing to touch the papers handed toward them; doing so does not require the server to try again on a later date or resort immediately to some other mode of service. For process servers, this means carefully documenting the refusal itself and the specific act of leaving the summons in the defendant's view and presence, since that documentation becomes important to later establishing that personal service was validly completed that day. A defendant who later claims never to have been served bears the burden of overcoming the server's return, which is precisely why the server's account of the refusal and where the summons was left matters so much.
Related provisions
- Rule 14, Section 5 — Service in person on defendant
- Rule 14, Section 4 — Validity of summons and issuance of alias summons[.]
- Rule 14, Section 6 — Substituted service