A Los Angeles process server is a qualified and legally registered staff that is tasked with the duty of serving individual court orders like protection orders, citations together with notices, and other legal documents. Process service is simply a means of getting court notice across to the intended party.
Anyone of legal age can be a process server but often a professional process server is employed to ensure the proper delivery of the legal documents in accordance with the rules and guidelines established. Process servers do not necessarily need to have finished a course to become one but must have full and adequate knowledge of the laws governing the serving of documents in the state.
There are various means of delivering, one of which includes a process server. The delivery method may also defer based on the type of documents and the locale of the court where the proceedings took place. A process server can regularly serve small claim actions, child support, eviction notice, divorce documents, bank levies, foreclosure, affidavits, summons, subpoenas, etc.
The primary job of a process server is to deliver documents to an intended person or party and the major purpose is to create awareness that court action is in place. The presence of rules and regulations helps in identifying some of the things a processor is allowed to do and those things that are illegal.
In this article, I will take you through some of the dos’ and don’ts of a process server.
- Forceful Entry – It is absolutely illegal for a process server to forcefully break into the home of anyone the document is meant to be delivered. In the case whereby the person refuses to open the door, it is entirely against the law to break into the residence. As a process server, if you can not gain entry into the property, you have to either wait for the person or come back to serve the document.
- Although a process server shouldn’t illegally gain access to the person’s property, it is not illegal to wait outside the property until the person gets back or leaves thereby making it possible for the document to be served in a public place. The process server can also wait for the person outside a family member’s house if there is a possibility that the person might visit there.
- In an attempt to desperately or quickly deliver a document or a situation whereby the person is avoiding the process server, a process server shouldn’t leave the document with anyone below the legal age. The documents should only be left with an adult member of the household.
- When the document is to be delivered through the mail, a process server should not for any reason open the mailed document or go through the person’s mailbox which is considered personal. The document is a personal delivery which puts the process server in no place to view it. It is illegal and might carry different consequences.
- The usage of threat or harassment is highly against the rules and regulations governing the process servers. A process server can’t forcefully make anyone open a door, as well as threaten the person in order to be granted entry or accept the document being delivered.
- As a proper server, pretending to be someone else is not legally accepted. In no case should a process server claim to be a law enforcement officer or a lawyer in an attempt to make the person collect the document. Although process servers need to be creative with the ways they deliver their packages, it is illegal in all states to claim to be a police officer, it is an offense against the law.