Mass AG Brings "Sewer Service" Charges Against Process Server In Civil Suit For Allegedly Failing To Deliver Legal Papers To Parties Named In Lawsuits

From the Massachusetts Attorney General's office:

• Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Office has filed a lawsuit and obtained a temporary restraining order against Boston-based process server Stokes & Levin, Inc. and its sole officer and director, Darren Stokes, in connection with allegations that Stokes & Levin engaged in a pattern of falsifying service of legal papers and filing those documents with state and federal courts.

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• According to the complaint, [...] Stokes & Levin filed documents on multiple occasions with courts, indicating that it had served documents on the intended recipients, when in fact, Stokes & Levin had not served the documents at all. These alleged actions left individuals exposed to potential liability in cases that they may not have been aware of.

• Stokes & Levin also allegedly misrepresented in court filings and at court hearings that service of legal documents had occurred, thereby signaling that cases could proceed, when in fact, the intended recipients had not received the documents and were not on notice of the legal proceedings and hearings in which they were expected to participate and attend.

For more, see AG Coakley Obtains Temporary Restraining Order Against Process Server for Making False Representations to Courts.

For earlier media reports on this process server firm, see

• Process Service Company Ordered to Pay $3 Million for Alleged Unserved Subpoenas,
• Judge: Firm lied about subpoena delivery (Awards ex-Bermuda bank president $3.3 million in damages).

Go here for other posts on "sewer service" which, according to at least one source, is so named on the theory that the process server simply tosses the legal papers into the sewer instead of attempting to deliver them to the proper party named in the lawsuit. The server then files a sworn statement with the court attesting that the papers were properly served on the named parties.

Go here for other posts on process server screw ups. ScrewUpProcessServing SewerServiceAlpha