SULLIVAN, J.
A court approved a child’s paternal grandparents’ request to adopt the child without the child’s mother’s knowledge. Although the paternal grandparents did publish notice, they did not perform a diligent search reasonably calculated to determine the mother’s whereabouts before doing so. As such, the mother did not receive the notice of the adoption proceedings required by law.
On March 1, 2003, Mother gave birth to a baby boy (“Child”). At the time, she was unmarried and incarcerated. A coworker of Mother, N.E., assisted at birth and within a few weeks, a court appointed N.E. to be Child’s guardian. Soon thereafter, a court paternity proceeding determined the identity of Child’s Father.
Father’s adoptive parents (“Paternal Grandparents”) took an immediate interest in Child, and in August, 2003, they filed a petition in court to adopt Child. They mailed notices of the filing of the petition to N.E. and to Mother. More than a year later – in December, 2004 – Mother, N.E., Father, Paternal Grandparents, and Child’s guardian ad litem reached an agreement in which the court (1) dissolved N.E.’s guardianship of Child; (2) awarded joint legal custody to Paternal Grandparents and Mother; (3) awarded physical custody to Paternal Grandparents; and (4) provided parenting time to Mother (to be supervised by N.E.) and parenting time to N.E. individually.
In April, 2005, N.E. adopted Mother, thereby becoming Child’s adoptive grandmother.
In June, 2006, N.E., Father, and Paternal Grandparents returned to court and agreed to modify the December, 2004, arrangement. At their request, the court terminated Mother’s visitation with Child pending a hearing to determine her fitness to have contact with Child and granted N.E. non-custodial parenting time pursuant to the Indiana Parenting Time Guidelines. [Footnote omitted.]
Mother was incarcerated from September 21, 2006, to July 17, 2007, and again from September 21, 2007, to December 20, 2007.
The court proceedings described above occurred in Marion Superior Courts Civil No. 4 and Civil No. 8 (Probate Division). In August, 2007, Paternal Grandparents’ lawyer filed a new petition to adopt Child. This new case was assigned to the Probate Division. Paternal Grandparents and their lawyer did not give N.E. any notice (unlike their first adoption petition). As to notice to Mother, Paternal Grandparents filed an affidavit saying that they did not have Mother’s address or telephone number; that they had inquired with the Indiana Department of Correction and the Marion County Jail and learned that Mother was not presently incarcerated; and that Mother had not contacted Child since August, 2005. They also filed “proof of service” of the adoption petition by publication. There was no reasonable likelihood that Mother would see the published notice. Father was given notice of the petition and gave his consent to the adoption.
Neither Paternal Grandparents nor their lawyer ever told N.E. that they had filed the new adoption petition. On January 31, 2008, Paternal Grandparents dropped off Child with N.E. for parenting time. They did not tell N.E. that while she would be taking care of Child, they would be attending the adoption hearing. The transcript of the brief adoption hearing before the judge pro tempore reflects that Father was in the courtroom but that there was no reference or inquiry as to Mother or her absence. After some questioning of each of the Paternal Grandparents as to their desire and fitness to adopt – their desire and fitness to adopt is very clear from the record – the judge granted the adoption. Paternal Grandparents informed N.E. of the adoption when they picked up Child – and that they would soon be asking the court to terminate N.E.’s rights to parenting time.
Within two weeks (on February 13, 2008), Mother and N.E. jointly asked the court to vacate the adoption. . . . .
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The adoption statute and the Trial Rules provide the mechanism of notice or service of process by publication “if the . . . address of the person is not known.” Ind. Code § 31-19-4.5-2(2) (2008); see also Ind. Trial Rule 4.13(A). But the Due Process Clause demands a diligent search before attempting notice by publication. See Mullane v. Cent. Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 317 (1950) (permitting service by publication for those whose whereabouts could not be ascertained with due diligence); Munster v. Groce, 829 N.E.2d 52, 60 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005) (noting that “the Due Process Clause requires that in order for constructive notice of a lawsuit to be sufficient, a party must exercise due diligence in attempting to locate a litigant’s whereabouts”).
The cases make clear that service by publication is inadequate when a diligent effort has not been made to ascertain a party’s whereabouts. In Smith v. Tisdal, notice of adoption given by publication in an Indiana newspaper when mother was a resident of Alaska was held insufficient because the case lacked “the earmarks of diligence” present in other cases. 484 N.E.2d 42, 44 (Ind. Ct. App. 1985). The determinative factors included a lack of effort to contact mother at her last known address in Alaska and no testimony indicating that any steps had been taken to learn of her whereabouts. Id. In Goodson v. Carlson, service at defendant’s residence failed be-cause plaintiff did not provide an apartment number; plaintiff later attempted service by publication. 888 N.E.2d 217, 218-19 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008). In finding that plaintiff failed to exercise due diligence, the court observed that plaintiff had attempted to ascertain defendant’s residence only from BMV records, and although the records provided an apartment number in a previous year, plaintiff had made no attempt to serve defendant at that specific number. Id. at 221-22. Further, plaintiff had failed to contact an apartment manager, other tenants, or defendant’s auto-mobile insurer to discern defendant’s address. Id. at 222; . . . . .
Where courts have found service by publication adequate to confer jurisdiction, it has only been upon an adequate showing of diligent search. In D.L.D. v. L.D., a wife had attempted to serve her husband by mail at his last known address, had tried to locate him at the homes of both his best friend and mother, and had enlisted the help of the local prosecutor’s office, all prior to seeking service through publication. 911 N.E.2d 675, 679 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009), trans. denied, Davis v. Davis, 929 N.E.2d 783 (Ind. 2010) (table). The court found an adequate showing of due diligence, basing its conclusion on her unsuccessful efforts to locate her husband physically or by mail. Id. at 680. In Bays v. Bays, a father had attempted to locate a mother by contacting her parents several times over the course of three years and by employing a private investigator, all prior to publishing notice. 489 N.E.2d 555, 557 (Ind. Ct. App. 1986), trans. denied. The court found that these efforts constituted a diligent search. [Footnote omitted.] Id. at 559. . . . .
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Under the facts of this case, we simply cannot conclude that Paternal Grandparents and their lawyer performed the diligent search required by the Due Process Clause. Here, although Paternal Grandparents had successfully given notice to Mother at N.E.’s address on previous occasions, they made no attempt to do so here. Viewing the evidence most favorably to them, they made only the most obtuse and ambiguous attempt to ask N.E. about Mother’s whereabouts. They affirmatively concealed from N.E. the very fact that they were filing an adoption petition even though the most minimal diligence to find Mother would have involved N.E. One need look no further than the fact that N.E. and Mother filed their motion in court less than two weeks after Paternal Grandparents told N.E. that the adoption had been granted to see how little effort would have been required for Paternal Grandparents to find Mother had they involved N.E.
Because Paternal Grandparents and their counsel failed to perform the diligent search for Mother required by the Due Process Clause, notice and service of process by publication was insufficient to confer personal jurisdiction over Mother. Accordingly, we return this case to the trial court with directions to grant Mother’s Trial Rule 60(B) motion, thereby vacating the adoption decree. [Footnote omitted.]
Shepard, C.J., and Dickson, Rucker, and David, JJ., concur.