BENNETT v. CHRISTIANA BANK & TRUST COMPANY
Case No. 3D09-2653.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
Opinion filed December 1, 2010.
On November 20, 2008, Christiana Bank & Trust Company filed an action to foreclose the mortgage on Ms. Bennett’s home. The plaintiff’s attorneys, Golson Felberbaum Law Firm, hired Pro-Vest LLC, a process service company, to serve Ms. Bennett. Christopher P. Mas, a Pro-Vest employee, filed a verified return of service on December 29, 2008. The return indicated that individual service was accomplished on December 20 at 4:13 p.m. The return further indicated that “DEFENDANT REFUSED TO DISCLOSE MILITARY STATUS; PROPERTY IS NOT A MOBILE HOME. I asked the person spoken to if the person served is married and I received a negative reply.”
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I understand that Provest LLC is named in this article because they are the company that used the server in question. What I don’t understand is that the Servers (him/her) name does not appear as well. This server is appointed either by the Court or Sheriff to serve service of process in this county. Companies like Provest, Firefly and the other support services contract with servers in each county and are limited to who has the authority to serve. I do not think that any Provest full time employee was standing next to this server telling them what to do. I also know that the self employed contracted server made the decision to complete the service without verification that they were talking to the Defendant. Just because you “THINK” the defendant is in the residence is not enough to complete the service.
I do not see any mention that this server has been reviewed by the entity that gave them authority or that anything was done to the server at all. The key questions that should be asked are 1. Is this server still sub contracting for Provest? 2. Is this server still working for anyone serving process? 3. Has the server been put up for disciplinary review based upon this incident? If the server is still working, plan on seeing another one of these in the future.
Most good process servers would not take such a chance and file such a return of service. Too often the servicing companies name is splashed across the articles and no mention of the server or what happened to them is ever known. When some servers that even if they screw up nothing is going to be done, these type services will and do take place on a regular basis.