Mark Puente/Plain Dealer Reporter - May 30, 2009
CLEVELAND -- Cuyahoga County Sheriff Bob Reid plans to dismiss eight process servers whose sole responsibility is to serve subpoenas in civil cases.
The 18-member team is largely staffed by political hires or friends of former Sheriff Gerald McFaul or his top aides. Reid plans to reduce the staff to 10; the remaining eight will be notified in two weeks.
The workers all earn about $26,000 a year and receive full benefits and mileage allowances. Most of them are retired from other jobs. Reid ordered a thorough audit of the agency when he took office this month and told department heads to trim costs.
Civil administrators consolidated routes and duties of the process servers without affecting the operation, he said. Reid estimated the cuts will save $250,000 a year.
Dismissing the employees was a cost-saving opportunity, not a way to punish people because of how they got the job, he added.
Read the rest of the story:
Cuyahoga County Sheriff Bob Reid to let go 8 process servers to cut costs
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Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Hennepin Co. cases reviewed due to unserved summons
KSTP.com - Nicole Muehlhausen - 05/20/2009
Imagine opening up the mail and finding out you're in default—a judge issuing a judgment against you that could lead to your financial ruin.
It’s happened to up to 200 people in Hennepin County, all by mistake. Authorities say one man is to blame and he could go to prison.
Angus Mceachern, 23, had one key job: Serve people with papers saying they're being sued for owing money. But investigators say he never did that and now 1,000 cases are under review.
Mceachern, of Brooklyn Center, faces 13 counts of perjury. He’s accused of lying about serving people with legal papers, leading to huge consequences for homeowners like Valerie Pitel.
Pitel says without warning, a judge entered a default judgment against her when she didn't show up for a court hearing she didn't know she had.
"I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know what to do," she said.
Read the rest of the story:
Hennepin Co. cases reviewed due to unserved summons
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Imagine opening up the mail and finding out you're in default—a judge issuing a judgment against you that could lead to your financial ruin.
It’s happened to up to 200 people in Hennepin County, all by mistake. Authorities say one man is to blame and he could go to prison.
Angus Mceachern, 23, had one key job: Serve people with papers saying they're being sued for owing money. But investigators say he never did that and now 1,000 cases are under review.
Mceachern, of Brooklyn Center, faces 13 counts of perjury. He’s accused of lying about serving people with legal papers, leading to huge consequences for homeowners like Valerie Pitel.
Pitel says without warning, a judge entered a default judgment against her when she didn't show up for a court hearing she didn't know she had.
"I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know what to do," she said.
Read the rest of the story:
Hennepin Co. cases reviewed due to unserved summons
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Thursday, May 21, 2009
Brooklyn Center server of court papers charged with lying about delivery
StarTribune.com - May 20, 2009 - 11:51 PM
A Brooklyn Center man who served papers notifying people of lawsuits against them lied about completing the notifications for 13 people, leaving them facing default judgments for cases they didn't know about, according to criminal charges.
Angus McEachern, 23, was charged Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court with 13 counts of perjury. The court vacated 186 default judgments in response to the allegations. Default judgments are entered against civil defendants who fail to respond to a lawsuit.
McEachern told investigators that he signed about 200 false affidavits during the six months he was employed by Major Legal Professional Process Serving in 2008, the charges said.
Read the rest of the story:
Brooklyn Center server of court papers charged with lying about delivery
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A Brooklyn Center man who served papers notifying people of lawsuits against them lied about completing the notifications for 13 people, leaving them facing default judgments for cases they didn't know about, according to criminal charges.
Angus McEachern, 23, was charged Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court with 13 counts of perjury. The court vacated 186 default judgments in response to the allegations. Default judgments are entered against civil defendants who fail to respond to a lawsuit.
McEachern told investigators that he signed about 200 false affidavits during the six months he was employed by Major Legal Professional Process Serving in 2008, the charges said.
Read the rest of the story:
Brooklyn Center server of court papers charged with lying about delivery
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Landowner vows battle with MJUSD
May 16, 2009 - Ryan McCarthy/Appeal-Democrat
A landowner whose property the Marysville Joint Unified School District seeks in an eminent domain proceeding says he's hired the best law firm in the state to represent him and his family in the legal fight.
"I look forward to a very long and costly court battle with you," Stephen Hull said in a letter to the school district.
The letter notes the Sacramento law firm — Desmond, Nolan, Livaich & Cunnigham — is handling the eminent domain case involving family property along Hammonton-Smartville Road near Yuba College.
Marysville Joint Unified plans to build the East Linda Intermediate School — replacing the now-closed Alicia school — at the site.
Hull in a separate correspondence also contends that a process server partially blocked a road near his home in El Dorado County and then damaged the driveway by spinning tires when trying to serve him with court papers.
"I was outraged by his behavior," Hull stated.
The March letters are among documents filed this week at Yuba County Superior Court in connection with the land where Marysville Joint Unified wants to construct school buildings.
In another filing this week, the attorney for the Marysville school district said that Hull sought to evade the process server, who tried 27 times to serve Hull and that the school district was "required to pay for several stakeouts" to serve Hull...
Read the rest of the story:
Landowner vows battle with MJUSD
A landowner whose property the Marysville Joint Unified School District seeks in an eminent domain proceeding says he's hired the best law firm in the state to represent him and his family in the legal fight.
"I look forward to a very long and costly court battle with you," Stephen Hull said in a letter to the school district.
The letter notes the Sacramento law firm — Desmond, Nolan, Livaich & Cunnigham — is handling the eminent domain case involving family property along Hammonton-Smartville Road near Yuba College.
Marysville Joint Unified plans to build the East Linda Intermediate School — replacing the now-closed Alicia school — at the site.
Hull in a separate correspondence also contends that a process server partially blocked a road near his home in El Dorado County and then damaged the driveway by spinning tires when trying to serve him with court papers.
"I was outraged by his behavior," Hull stated.
The March letters are among documents filed this week at Yuba County Superior Court in connection with the land where Marysville Joint Unified wants to construct school buildings.
In another filing this week, the attorney for the Marysville school district said that Hull sought to evade the process server, who tried 27 times to serve Hull and that the school district was "required to pay for several stakeouts" to serve Hull...
Read the rest of the story:
Landowner vows battle with MJUSD
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The Default Line
Foreclosures keep rising and auction workers keep reading
By Diane Dietz - The Register-Guard- May 12, 2009
Lacy Nash, with Oregon Process Service, often reads foreclosure sale postponements to herself and someone at an adjacent desk in the entrance to the Lane County Courthouse. Legally, foreclosure sales or sale postponements must be read somewhere in the county.
The precise moment that Lane County residents lose their houses to foreclosure — or get a formal reprieve — comes with considerable anti-climax.
On Tuesday, for example, at 11 a.m., attorney Robert Russell stepped into the hallway on the eighth floor of the Citizens Building in downtown Eugene, stood with his left hand in the pocket of his crisply pleated slacks and read a piece of paper.
The foreclosure auction of Meyer’s General Store in Blue River and the attached apartment where the owner lives would be “postponed indefinitely,” Russell said.
If a reporter hadn’t been there to witness the reading, Russell would have been alone. But he said he’d read the legal paperwork out loud anyway. “Yeah, I’m supposed to,” he said.
Two hours later, in the lobby of the Lane County Court House, Lacey Nash, a young woman with a pierced cheek and a nose ring, took a seat at a Formica table and read the fate of three Eugene houses.
This time, each auction was formally postponed until dates in June and July.
Nash, an employee with Oregon Process Services, said her company either conducts the auctions or postpones the auctions at the same spot at the court house as many as three times each weekday — at 10 a.m., at 11 a.m. and at 1 p.m.
“There’s definitely a lot,” Nash said. “Just this morning we got at least 15 (notices) letting people know their houses are being sold.”
Read the rest of the story:
THE DEFAULT LINE
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By Diane Dietz - The Register-Guard- May 12, 2009
Lacy Nash, with Oregon Process Service, often reads foreclosure sale postponements to herself and someone at an adjacent desk in the entrance to the Lane County Courthouse. Legally, foreclosure sales or sale postponements must be read somewhere in the county.
The precise moment that Lane County residents lose their houses to foreclosure — or get a formal reprieve — comes with considerable anti-climax.
On Tuesday, for example, at 11 a.m., attorney Robert Russell stepped into the hallway on the eighth floor of the Citizens Building in downtown Eugene, stood with his left hand in the pocket of his crisply pleated slacks and read a piece of paper.
The foreclosure auction of Meyer’s General Store in Blue River and the attached apartment where the owner lives would be “postponed indefinitely,” Russell said.
If a reporter hadn’t been there to witness the reading, Russell would have been alone. But he said he’d read the legal paperwork out loud anyway. “Yeah, I’m supposed to,” he said.
Two hours later, in the lobby of the Lane County Court House, Lacey Nash, a young woman with a pierced cheek and a nose ring, took a seat at a Formica table and read the fate of three Eugene houses.
This time, each auction was formally postponed until dates in June and July.
Nash, an employee with Oregon Process Services, said her company either conducts the auctions or postpones the auctions at the same spot at the court house as many as three times each weekday — at 10 a.m., at 11 a.m. and at 1 p.m.
“There’s definitely a lot,” Nash said. “Just this morning we got at least 15 (notices) letting people know their houses are being sold.”
Read the rest of the story:
THE DEFAULT LINE
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