Rule 6 Personal Jurisdiction Without Service of Summons

This rule explains when the Oregon Tax Court can make decisions about a person or business without formally serving them with a summons first. Normally, a court needs to serve someone with legal papers before it can make decisions affecting them. This rule covers two situations where that step is not required.

The first situation is when someone starts a case in the Tax Court and the other side files a counterclaim against them. Since that person already brought the case to court, the court can also rule on any counterclaim without needing to serve them separately.

The second situation involves someone who voluntarily shows up in a case and gives up their right to argue that the court lacks authority over them, or that there was some problem with the summons or how it was delivered. If a person does this, the court can treat them as being properly part of the case, even though they were never formally served.

The rule also protects people who want to defend themselves in a case without giving up their right to challenge the court's authority later. If someone is brought into a case under a specific rule called TCR 5, they can still argue their case on the facts without automatically agreeing that the court has power over them just because they showed up to defend themselves.