Inside the world of process serving: Explaining what happened to Olivia Wilde

Actor Jason Sudeikis says he never meant for his former fiancée to be served papers in front of thousands of spectators. But how did that happen? A process server explains the mechanics of the system.

Transcript

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Breaking up is rarely pretty. Sorting out the details can be awkward or worse, particularly when there are kids involved. But it is not usually quite as awkward as what transpired on a stage this week in Las Vegas. Actress Olivia Wilde was on stage at a convention introducing her latest film to an audience of more than 4,000 Hollywood types. That is when a man stood up, approached the stage and slid a manila envelope towards her. She was being served - served legal documents pertaining to custody of the children she has with actor Jason Sudeikis of "Ted Lasso" fame. NPR's Vanessa Romo has been looking into that moment and the world of process serving. Hey there, Vanessa.

VANESSA ROMO, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.

KELLY: OK, so the background first. What exactly happened between these two?

ROMO: All right. I want to take it back to the very basics. Olivia Wilde and the actor Jason Sudeikis, they were never actually married, but they do have two children together. They split up some time ago, but apparently, there are still some legal issues to work out. So earlier this week, Olivia Wilde was at something called CinemaCon and introducing her upcoming film, "Don't Worry Darling." And as she bent down to grab the envelope, she said something along the lines of, what's this, a script? And it definitely was not.

KELLY: I just - I mean, I just can't even imagine. What a moment. So just tell us a little bit more about what exactly was inside.

ROMO: So it turns out the envelope contained legal documents, quote, "drawn up to establish jurisdiction relating to the children of Ms. Wilde and Mr. Sudeikis." And you know what? To her credit, and very much in the spirit of the show-must-go-on kind of performer, Wilde just continued. She seemed completely unfazed. And while it could have been a really mortifying moment in her life, she simply just carried on talking about the film.

KELLY: She was not fazed, but people across the internet are certainly fazed, totally riled up. Her ex Jason Sudeikis' representatives have said he thinks the incident was inappropriate. It has raised all kind of questions about process servers and how this is supposed to work.

ROMO: That's right. And so in an effort to answer these questions, I spoke with Bill Falkner, owner of Clark County Process Service, which is based in Las Vegas where Wilde was served. And to be clear, his firm did not serve Wilde. But he explained that there aren't a ton of rules in this business.

BILL FALKNER: The way my business works, however somebody gets served is up to me but with the input, obviously, with the client. Because if we don't make the clients happy, they don't come back.

ROMO: He told me that rules on when and where a person can be served, they vary from state to state. So for instance, some states forbid service on Sunday. Others limit the hours during which someone can be served. But that's not the case in Nevada. According to Falkner, there's a sort of loose code of ethics in place that says processors should use good judgment and not do things that are inappropriate or cause undue attention or anything like that. But there are no real ramifications for violating that.

KELLY: Really? There's nothing to stop someone from doing what happened here?

ROMO: It seems as if there's not. But, you know, in Falkner's experience - and he's been in the business since 2015, and he says he's served his share of famous entertainers - he says even he was quite surprised by the public element in the Wilde case.

FALKNER: I have never come across a client or been involved in a serve where this would be the first thing we do. You know, this is like a last-ditch effort.

ROMO: So basically, if conventional methods aren't working, servers have to get creative. And that's certainly what this server did.

KELLY: NPR's Vanessa Romo. Thank you.

ROMO: Thanks so much.

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