What Legal Pitfalls Should Businesses Avoid When Process Serving?

Learn about some of the most promising tools available to process servers and a few challenges they might face on the job.

If you’ve been hunting for lost assets but haven’t had any luck, here’s why hiring a skip tracer is wise.

Is your business searching for a process server in Florida but don’t know how to compare your options? Here are the top 10 qualities of a process server.

Skip tracing services help businesses track down unresponsive, hard-to-find, or missing people related to your business needs.

Private investigators who conduct illegal surveillance with a drone could be held liable. The drone laws in Florida are strict.

If your client is taking legal action against another person or party, whether to sue for compensation or punitive damages, one of the initial steps you’ll need to complete is serving the legal documents to them. “Serving” is the process of delivering the notice of legal action. It involves verifying that the documents made it to the defendant. The main way to serve legal documents is through a process server in Florida. To understand how long you have to serve legal documents in Florida, it is helpful to understand two concepts: the statute of limitations and the 120-day rule. Statute of Limitations for Civil Cases in Florida A statute of limitations refers to the time you have to take legal action against a person or party after an event. That generally includes hiring the services of a process server in Florida to ensure proper delivery of your documents. Florida has different statutes of limitations for different cases; you’ll want to speak with an attorney about the statute of limitations that applies to your case. The deadlines for common civil cases in Florida are as follows: Injury to a person : Four years Professional malpractice : Two years Injury to personal property : Four years Wrongful death : Two years The clock usually begins ticking on the day the damages occurred. For wrongful death, the statute of limitations begins on the date of the person’s death. For malpractice cases and other instances where the damages are not realized until some time after the actual event, the statute of limitations would begin when the plaintiff reasonably should have realized the damages. A few rare exceptions to the statute of limitations exist. If you have already surpassed the case’s deadline, speak with an attorney about whether any exceptions may apply to you. The 120-Day Rule for Serving Legal Documents Once you have filed a lawsuit in the civil court, you’ll need to adhere to Florida’s 120-day rule for serving the documents to the defendant. You have 120 days from the filing date to serve the notice of the lawsuit to the defendant officially. The typical way to serve these documents is through a professional process server in Florida. If your business fails to serve the paperwork within 120 days, the defendant can file a motion to dismiss, and the court can dismiss the case. It is possible to refile the complaint if you are still within the statute of limitations. But if you have fallen outside the statute of limitations, you must argue that the state’s Savior Clause applies to your case. The Savior Clause allows plaintiffs to extend the 120-day rule if they can show “good cause” for why they did not serve the complaint within 120 days. Good cause generally means that the plaintiff attempted to serve the complaint but was not able to locate the defendant or could not otherwise deliver the complaint for valid reasons. Ensure Timely Service of Process With Professional Process Servers & Investigators, Inc. In summary, you have 120 days from filing the lawsuit to serve the paperwork, but you can refile if necessary as long as you are within the statute of limitations. Professional Process Servers & Investigators, Inc. offers reliable service of process in Florida. If required, we can officially serve your complaint to the defendant through a few different methods. Our efficient services can prevent you from missing the 120-day deadline and needing to refile or prove good cause. To hire a process server in Florida, call 954-566-2523 or complete the online form .

Skip tracers are professional investigators who track down people who don’t want to be found. This may include past addresses and bank or credit information.

Process servers provide a valuable resource to businesses, and have skills to navigate those who seek to flee.

We serve private mailboxes on a regular basis. These include places like The UPS Store, Pak-N-Ship locations, etc. However, these are only done in special cases for individuals and corporations. This is based on Florida Statute 48.031. Transcript: The state has some rules and some changes, which I also want to tell you about, that came about in 2004. We were having so many problems in serving corporations, where they were hiding behind a mailbox facility, a Pak-N-Ship, one of those places, using a suite number with an actual box number, where we couldn’t get to serve them because they were hidden. There was no place for their home address. The legislature then amended the statute to allow us, if the individual/corporation uses a private mailbox facility as their place of business, and you can determine that they still maintain a mailbox there, you can serve the attendant , which then stopped all of that nonsense and craziness. The other statute is that if the only address discoverable through public record is a private mailbox, and you can determine that the person is still there, if it’s a private individual, yes, you can now serve the mailbox attendant as well. …but you have to make sure that he still maintains a box there. That’s part of the statute. So, what we normally do is, we’ll walk in, we see it’s a mailbox. The first thing we ask before we can even tell them who we are, “I have a delivery for XYZ Corporation. Do they still maintain box 214?” “Yes, they do.” “Served.”