I serve court documents for my clients as well as perform skip tracing to locate defendants and witnesses.
If the serve is within 35 miles of my office, a flat fee for service is charged.
If outside the range, that rate is either by mileage and time or by negotiated flat fee.
I have served over 1,000 documents with none being overturned in court.
I also provide skip tracing services.
Skip tracing is critical, due to California's 2 year statute of limitation for civil cases.
With a highly mobile society, individuals have a tendency to move more often, requiring skip tracing to locate them for process service.
Under the Private Investigators Act, only a Private Investigator can immediately begin to skip trace the individual to be served if the address is incorrect.
If you are sure the address you are serving an individual at is correct, then using a process server may be more economical.
But, if time has past and the individual may have moved and will require skip tracing, or the individual is going to be hard to serve and require surveillance, or determination of their place of work, then I as a Private Investigator can start at the address you provided, by talking to the new residents, neighbors, realtors, etc.
A process server cannot legally do this.
Under B&P § 7521(b)
The …, movement, whereabouts, affiliations … of any person can only be determined by a licensed Private Investigator.
If a process server asks questions of this nature of individuals they are subject to criminal prosecution under the Business and Profession Code.
Under B&P § 7522, a registered process server may only engage in the act of serving process and not engage in the act of investigations i.e., skip tracing.
B&P § 22353(a) only requires a bond be provided to the county in the amount of $2,000 for a process server.
This bond is for recovery of damages by individuals who obtain a judgment against the processes server for improper service or other cause of action.
I personally carry E&O coverage of $1,000,000/$2,000,000.
Should I make an error, I have insurance to settle any damages.
Additionally, you need to be selective of your process servers.
There are no education requirements to become a process server.
Most do take their jobs seriously and learn the requirements of the job.
Private Investigators are required to have 6,000 hours of experience and take a State test.
The test covers areas that overlap process service issues.
|
|
While most people think that process serving is easy money, it is subject to high risks.
Many law enforcement agencies in California will not respond to requests for aid by individuals serving process.
What is even more critical is that the District Attorneys' usually will not prosecute assaults against individuals whom assault people serving process even though legislation created additional criminal offenses for those attacks.
It is not uncommon for people serving process to undergo abuses such as being sworn at, threatened, having objects thrown at them (assault), being hit (battery) and in recent cases being shot at.
It is rare that the criminals are prosecuted, even though the service of process is part of the court process.
I have been hit, threatened with a knife, grabbed, and threatened by a large group of individuals.
That is why I have resorted to recording all of my serves.
No matter the type or location, I record the serve to document what occurred.
Even with visual evidence, law enforcement and the District Attorney's office still does not pursue the criminal cases.
On a recent serve, I was attempting to serve a hostile witness, a chiropractor who provides opinions for State Compensation Fund who was intentionally avoiding being served.
Even though she was home she would not respond to the door.
The next morning I put her house under surveillance.
She went out the back of her house to a neighbors’ house and jumped in a friend’s car.
While she ran around town for about half-an-hour, I just waited at her office.
Upon seeing me they took off again.
A few blocks away they were stopped at a traffic light and I started
to get out to serve her.
They started to make an illegal turn down a one way street.
I pulled my car forward and blocked them.
I then got out and served her through her open window after they almost pulled forward into me while I was approaching on foot.
While most process servers will make three attempts and call it quits, I will continue until the serve is complete.
I personally only charge a flat fee for my serves.
My clients understand that I make a profit on the easy serves, but know I lose money on many others.
|
