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III. ANALYSIS

A. Defendants' Expedited Motion to Dismiss Plaintiffs Complaint

In their first motion, Defendants argue that they were not properly served with Plaintiff's complaint, and are therefore entitled to have the complaint dismissed. In particular, Defendants allege that Plaintiff's attorney asked Defendants to waive formal service of the complaint during a telephone conversation. Defendants admit that they agreed to waive formal service over the telephone. Defendants argue, however, that they did not properly waive formal service of process because FED. R. CIV. P. 4(d)(2) requires that requests to waive formal service of process must be in writing.

Though formal service of process was not "properly" waived under Rule 4(d), the Court disagrees with Defendants' conclusion that Plaintiff's complaint should be dismissed. The Supreme Court has stated that the policy behind the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure dictates that they should be construed to allow cases to be decided on the merits. See Schiavone v. Fortune, 477 U.S. 21, 27 (1986). The Supreme Court explicitly rejected the notion that legal procedure should be a "game of skill in which one misstep may be decisive." Id. at 27. This policy is embodied in FED. R. CIV. P. 1, which states: "[The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure] shall be construed and administered to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action." See FED. R. CIV. P. 1.
The reason complaints are to be served is to provide a defendant with notice that an action has been commenced.

[This is a reason, but it's hardly the only reason.

In addition to specifying that a complaint must be served in writing, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure also require that defendants must be notified of the consequences of compliance and non-compliance with a request for a waiver of service, and must allow a defendant a "reasonable time" to respond (at least 30 days). Taubman's failure to notify me of the required timing of my response set off a chain of procedural errors on my part which have severely hampered my ability to defend myself.

If the requirement that complaints must be served in writing is a mere technicality that can be ignored with complete impunity, then why is it included in the Federal Rules in the first place?

I have had motions denied because they were not in accordance with various rules. I have been scolded by the judge for my failure to adhere to a local rule, even when the rule in question involved little more than a formatting issue. And yet the judge is willing to allow Taubman, a huge corporation represented by a major law firm, to completely ignore federal rules, even though their failure to abide by those rules have caused massive problems for me. It seems that Taubman is free to ignore the rules, but I'm not. I just don't get it.]

See Oklahoma Radio Assoc. v. FDIC, 969 F.2d 940, 943 (10" Cir. 1992). That purpose was served in the present case; though Plaintiff did not "properly" request Defendants to waive formal service of process, Defendants were apprised of the claims made against them in a timely fashion. Furthermore, Defendants admit that they agreed to waive formal service of process during a telephone conversation. Therefore, Defendants' Expedited Motion to Dismiss Plaintiffs Complaint is DENIED.