Recent changes to Illinois law regarding notification of a lawsuit via email; what responsibilities does sender have re. verification of receipt?

Question

A recent local news item describes a woman who received notification of a lawsuit in her "junk email" account while she was in the hospital, giving 21 days to reply. She did not reply, and a judgement was rendered.

The linked article mentions that Illinois law on notification of lawsuits recently changed allowing for it to be done via email, but it does not go into detail about what the new law says regarding responsibilities the sender has to verify the email address is correct, working or if the target is aware-of and has read the email.

So I'd like to ask about those details here.

Answer 1

Service by e-mail is allowed by Rule 102 of the Supreme Court Rules.

To get permission to serve by e-mail, the person requesting that permission must include an affidavit setting out the reasons they believe "the defendant/respondent has recently sent and received transmissions from a specific e-mail address."

And when actually serving using e-mail:

Service by e-mail shall be made by (i) sending an e-mail to the defendant/respondent at his or her current e-mail address; (ii) attaching a copy of the summons, complaint/petition, and any other required documents to the e-mail; (iii) stating in the subject line of the e-mail message : “Important information—You are being sued”; and (iv) stating in the body of the e-mail: “You have been sued. Read all of the documents attached to this e-mail. To participate in the case, you must follow the instructions listed in the attached summons. If you do not, the court may decide the case without hearing from you, and you could lose the case.”