Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 18

Summary: - Procedures are presumed to have been observed and duly completed. Whoever maintains that they are invalid must prove his allegation. - The appellant’s plea that the appealed judgment was invalid because the statement of claim was invalid, having been served at ten in the evening. It was established that the time recorded in the notice of service was ten. That time is understood to mean the morning according to the presumption and because it falls within process servers’ working hours. The challenged judgment’s rejection of the plea because the appellant did not prove the contrary of this presumption. Correct. Rule: It is established in this Court’s case law that ascertaining whether service on the parties in the case took place, and assessing the evidence and documents submitted concerning it, are factual matters independently assessed by the trial court without review by the Court of Cassation, provided that this ascertainment has support in the case papers. A return of service is an instrument to which the law accords absolute probative force regarding matters performed by its author within the scope of his duty, unless it is shown to be forged. Procedures are presumed to have been observed and duly completed, and whoever maintains that they are invalid must prove this. That being so, and whereas the challenged judgment based its rejection of the appellant’s plea that the appealed judgment was invalid because the statement of claim was invalid, having been served at ten in the evening, on the ground that the time recorded in the notice of service, namely (ten), means the morning, since the established presumption is that service was effected at this latter time during process servers’ working hours, and that the appellant did not prove the contrary of this presumption, and the documents issued by it in this respect could not be trusted or relied upon, these are tenable reasons with an established basis in the papers, sufficient to support the challenged judgment’s ruling and leading to its conclusion. The complaint against it on this ground is therefore unfounded.