Miller Manufacturing Company v. HerculesAG LLC
Miller Manufacturing Company v. HerculesAG LLC; Foshan Shoumei Animal Husbandry Equipment Co., Ltd., d/b/a Farmates Electrics Limited
- Dulce Foster
- 0:25-cv-00113
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 11
In Miller Manufacturing Company v. HerculesAG LLC; Foshan Shoumei Animal Husbandry Equipment Co., Ltd., d/b/a Farmates Electrics Limited, Magistrate Judge Dulce J. Foster granted Miller Manufacturing permission to serve the Chinese defendant Farmates by email rather than through the lengthy international treaty process, but denied permission to serve through Farmates' U.S. trademark attorneys, and extended all pretrial deadlines by six months on a single unified track.
Companies or individuals seeking to serve foreign defendants — particularly Chinese entities — in U.S. federal litigation, and litigants dealing with scheduling when a foreign defendant has been added to a case mid-proceeding. Also relevant to attorneys who represent foreign parties in unrelated U.S. proceedings (such as trademark filings) who may be asked to accept service on those parties' behalf.
What happened
In Miller Manufacturing Company v. HerculesAG LLC and Foshan Shoumei Animal Husbandry Equipment Co., Ltd., d/b/a Farmates Electrics Limited, Miller Manufacturing sued two defendants — one American (HerculesAG LLC) and one Chinese (Farmates) — in a dispute involving cattle prod products. Miller asked the court for permission to serve Farmates, the Chinese defendant, using faster alternative methods instead of going through China's official government channel under an international treaty called the Hague Service Convention, which Miller's process server estimated could take six to twelve months. Miller proposed two alternative methods: emailing two addresses found on Farmates' website and sending documents to U.S. attorneys who had helped Farmates with trademark filings.
Magistrate Judge Foster found that the standard international treaty process was not required here and that Miller had acted diligently, not casually, in seeking alternatives. However, the judge rejected the request to serve through Farmates' U.S. trademark attorneys for two reasons: first, because a federal procedural rule governing service outside the United States does not apply when service is actually being completed inside the United States, and it would be legally contradictory to use that argument both to avoid the treaty and to justify the service method; second, because the attorneys — one of whom no longer represents Farmates and the other of whom ignored Miller's emails — could not reliably be expected to pass notice of the lawsuit to Farmates. The judge approved email service because evidence, including deposition testimony from HerculesAG's co-owner showing she emails someone named 'Ivy' at Farmates monthly and as recently as February 2026, and Amazon records linking 'ivan@farmates.com' to an active Farmates storefront selling the products at issue, showed both email addresses are actively in use.
Magistrate Judge Foster granted the motion in part and denied it in part: Miller may serve Farmates by emailing ivy@farmates.com and/or ivan@farmates.com, but may not use the U.S. trademark attorneys. The judge also extended all pretrial deadlines by six months on a single unified schedule applying to all parties, rejecting Miller's request to run separate timelines for the two defendants because doing so would create logistical burdens, complicate discovery, and potentially interfere with settlement. A separate stipulation between Miller and HerculesAG seeking shorter deadline extensions was denied as no longer necessary given the six-month extension.
The detailed version
- Miller Manufacturing Company v. HerculesAG LLC; Foshan Shoumei Animal Husbandry Equipment Co., Ltd., d/b/a Farmates Electrics Limited, No. 25-cv-113 (JMB/DJF)
- United States Magistrate Judge Dulce J. Foster
- February 24, 2026
Background
Plaintiff Miller Manufacturing Company filed suit against two defendants: HerculesAG LLC (a U.S. entity that is also a Counterclaim-Plaintiff) and Foshan Shoumei Animal Husbandry Equipment Co., Ltd., d/b/a Farmates Electrics Limited ('Farmates'), a Chinese company. The dispute involves cattle prod products. Farmates was added to the lawsuit in November 2025. Miller filed an unopposed motion on January 27, 2026, seeking: (1) court authorization for alternative methods of serving process on Farmates under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(f)(3), and (2) amendment of the pretrial scheduling order to allow adequate time to serve Farmates.
Proposed Alternative Service Methods
Miller proposed serving Farmates via: (a) two U.S. attorneys who had assisted Farmates with trademark filings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO); and (b) email to ivy@farmates.com and ivan@farmates.com, addresses found on Farmates' website. At the court's direction, Miller supplemented its motion with additional evidence and identified the second email address.
Legal Framework — Rule 4(f)(3)
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(f) governs service on individuals or entities outside the United States. Subsection (f)(3) permits service 'by other means not prohibited by international agreement, as the court orders.' The court noted this option is 'as favored' as other methods under the Rule and is 'neither a last resort nor extraordinary relief,' citing Rio Properties, Inc. v. Rio Intern. Interlink, 284 F.3d 1007, 1015 (9th Cir. 2002). Due process also independently requires any court-ordered service method to provide the defendant a fair opportunity to learn of the lawsuit and respond.
Hague Convention Analysis
The primary international agreement at issue is the Hague Service Convention. The court concluded that neither proposed method violates it. Service on U.S. counsel would be effectuated entirely within the United States; under Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft v. Schlunk, 486 U.S. 694, 707 (1988), the Convention is only triggered when the applicable service method requires transmittal of documents abroad. As for email, while China has objected to Article 10 of the Hague Convention (which addresses postal channels), courts generally have not interpreted that objection to extend to email service. The court also found Miller did not seek alternative service 'whimsically': Miller retained an international process server (Viking Advocates), which identified Farmates' Chinese address and estimated that service through China's Central Authority under the Convention would take six to twelve months — a delay courts have recognized as sufficient justification for alternative service.
U.S. Counsel Service — DENIED
The court denied this request on two independent grounds.
First — Scope of Rule 4(f): Rule 4(f) by its terms applies to service effectuated 'at a place not within any judicial district of the United States.' Because Miller itself acknowledged that serving U.S. counsel would be completed entirely within the United States, Rule 4(f) does not apply. The court found it logically contradictory to argue that service occurs in the United States (to avoid the Hague Convention) while simultaneously arguing it occurs outside the United States (to invoke Rule 4(f)(3)). The court declined to adopt that contradictory analysis to circumvent a treaty that is 'the supreme Law of the Land' under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution.
Second — Due Process/Notice: Even if Rule 4(f) applied, service through the identified U.S. attorneys would not reliably notify Farmates. The court applied a framework from AMTO, LLC v. Bedford Asset Mgmt., LLC, No. 14-cv-9913, 2015 WL 3457452 (S.D.N.Y. July 1, 2015), requiring evidence that U.S. counsel has filed a notice of appearance in the relevant action, has knowledge of the underlying facts, or has a special relationship with the defendant. Here, one attorney no longer represents Farmates; the other has not responded to any of Miller's emails; and Miller itself acknowledged it is 'not aware of a special relationship between Farmates and its U.S. based counsel beyond the attorney-client relationship in connection with Farmates' trademark applications.' This was insufficient.
Email Service — GRANTED
The court authorized service by email to both addresses, finding each likely to reach Farmates.
ivy@farmates.com: The strongest evidence came from the February 12, 2026 deposition of HerculesAG LLC's co-owner, who testified she communicates with a Farmates employee named 'Ivy' about purchase orders and shipping by email 'once or twice a month,' uses 'the Ivy at Farmates email address,' and last corresponded with Ivy in February 2026. This was sufficient to establish the address is actively monitored.
ivan@farmates.com: No single piece of evidence was conclusive, but taken together, the court found they sufficed. Evidence included: (1) screenshots of a text message thread between HerculesAG's co-owner and an individual named 'Ivan' concerning cattle prod manufacturing; (2) Amazon screenshots showing an active vendor called 'Farmates Vetplus' with an address identical to Farmates' import records, selling cattle prods (the products at issue), with hundreds of customer reviews including 27 in the past twelve months and four in 2026; (3) email from Amazon's counsel confirming ivan@farmates.com is the only email Amazon has on file for that vendor; (4) an email sent by Miller's counsel to that address requesting service acceptance; and (5) a signed declaration that no bounce-back error message was received, suggesting the email was delivered. The court concluded Farmates regularly uses ivan@farmates.com to conduct business, satisfying the notice requirement.
Pretrial Schedule Amendment
The court found good cause under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4) to extend pretrial deadlines by six months, based on Miller's diligence and the delays caused by serving a China-based defendant added only in November 2025. However, the court declined to bifurcate the schedule to run separately for each defendant, finding that would create logistical burdens, complicate discovery, and potentially interfere with settlement. All unexpired deadlines were extended uniformly. The parties' separate stipulation seeking shorter extensions of the fact discovery and related non-dispositive motion deadlines was denied as moot.
New Pretrial Deadlines
Close of fact discovery: August 17, 2026; Non-dispositive motions related to fact discovery: September 3, 2026; Disclosure of initial expert identities: September 10, 2026; Service of initial expert reports: October 1, 2026; Disclosure of rebuttal expert identities and service of rebuttal reports: November 2, 2026; Close of expert discovery: December 2, 2026; Non-dispositive motions related to expert discovery: December 9, 2026; Dispositive motions: February 17, 2027; Trial ready date: June 18, 2027.
Ruling
Motion GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. Alternative email service authorized; alternative service via U.S. trademark attorneys denied. Six-month uniform pretrial schedule extension granted. Parties' stipulation denied as moot.
Reviewer note from the AI+
Read the full 11-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.