Friday, March 26, 2010

New York City process servers must electronically log service attempts

"Process servers, you've been served -- with stricter regulations. New York's City Council passed a bill Thursday toughening rules for entities that hunt down people and serve them with legal papers, including a requirement that they electronically log every attempt.

The legislation also ensures that deceitful process servers who dump papers instead of serving them -- a trick known as "sewer service" -- could be liable if the people they were supposed to serve then turn and sue them.
The City Council approved the legislation largely to crack down on debt collection agencies that are often accused of failing to notify debtors that they have lawsuits pending against them.

Out of some 300,000 consumer credit cases filed in New York civil courts in 2008, about 80 percent resulted in default judgments in favor of the plaintiffs, the city said, meaning most defendants didn't know they were being sued."

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