Kenneth Redding, and Rhonda Redding, Individually and His Wife v. Essex Crane Rental Corporation of Alabama

Four times the district court notified the attorney for appellants, the Reddings, that their diversity suit for damages was subject to being dismissed because no steps had been taken to serve the named defendant, Essex Crane Rental Corporation of Alabama. Four times the attorney for the appellants replied that service would be made “at an appropriate time” or that service would be made “when the time had arrived to do so”. After the fourth such response, 255 days having elapsed since the filing of the' suit, and with a finding that no good cause had been shown, the district court dismissed…