Rule 4.Process, Attachment, Trustee Process, Arrest.

The court makes the summons, not the plaintiff. Subdivision (a) fixes its contents: the clerk's signature, the seal or watermark of the court, the court and the parties, direction to the defendant, the name and address of the plaintiff's attorney or of a self-represented litigant except where federal or state law prohibits it, the time to appear and defend, and a warning that failure to do so ends in a default judgment for the relief the complaint demands. Subdivision (b) routes it. Registered Users retrieve the summons from the Public Access Portal once the court accepts the complaint and the other required documents, incarcerated filers receive it by mail, and paper filers are handed it at the clerk's office or, if they mailed the papers in, get it by return mail when they enclose a self-addressed envelope or collect it at the clerk's office. The server gets the original summons for the return plus a copy set for the defendant: summons, complaint, Language Assistance Notice, and all other required documents. Under subdivision (c) that server is a duly authorized officer, another person authorized by law, or someone the court appoints for the purpose, with subpoenas the exception under Rule 45.

Subdivision (d) is where divorce parts company with ordinary practice. Under (d)(1)(A), a complaint for divorce or divorce from bed and board must be delivered to the defendant personally. Leaving the papers with someone else at the house is not an option. If the server returns that diligent effort failed, the next step is a method the court orders. In all other actions, (d)(1)(B) permits the familiar alternatives: personal delivery, copies left at the dwelling with a person of suitable age and discretion residing there, or delivery to an authorized agent. Separate paragraphs cover a person with a guardian or conservator, corporations public and private, and the state, served through the attorney general or an assistant attorney general. Subdivision (h) then puts proof of service on the plaintiff's side of the ledger: it is filed within the time the served person has to respond, and a failure to make proof does not invalidate the service itself.

Subdivision (d)(5) gives the state child support agency a narrower tool. For a complaint, petition, or motion the agency has filed under its Title IV-D child support responsibilities, other than a complaint for paternity or parentage, or to adjudge a party in contempt, the agency may send those papers and a Language Assistance Notice by first class mail to the party's address of record with the agency, along with a letter asking the party to appear. The letter must explain both outcomes. A party who appears and waives personal service gives the court jurisdiction, and the matter goes to the merits. A party who does not appear, or who appears and declines to waive, cannot be defaulted and cannot suffer any other adverse action on that matter, and the agency must then serve process the ordinary way.

The rest of the rule handles reach and remedies. Subdivision (e) covers an individual or foreign corporation already subject to the jurisdiction of this state's courts, and allows service outside Rhode Island by a disinterested person delivering the papers, by registered or certified mail with return receipt requested, or by another method the court orders to give notice and time to prepare a defense. Subdivision (f) opens those same methods where service cannot with due diligence be made personally inside the state, in two situations: where an interest in property or credits within the state has been brought before the court by attachment or trustee process, and where a pleading asks that a person be excluded from an interest in or lien on specific property within the state, or that such an interest or lien be enforced, regulated, defined, determined, or limited. In an action of that kind, (g) directs the court to order publication of a notice in one or more newspapers, in the form and for the length of time the court sets, whenever complete service cannot with due diligence be made another way, and where a statute provides for publication the statute's form and manner control. Subdivision (j) makes attachment and trustee process available on a motion that may not be granted ex parte and that is granted only on a showing that a judgment is probable in the plaintiff's favor and that the plaintiff needs security in the amount sought, with interest and costs. Subdivision (k) does the same for a writ of arrest and, in (k)(4), allows an order of arrest for ne exeat where the plaintiff would be entitled to a judgment requiring an act whose neglect or refusal the court could punish as contempt, and the defendant is not a resident of the state or is about to depart, so that the judgment risks being rendered ineffectual.