When it comes to serving someone with a subpoena, divorce papers, a summons, documents related to debt collection, or other legal papers that the intended recipient almost never wants to receive, people will indeed go to ridiculous extremes to avoid being served. Ask any process server who’s been at it for any length of time, and you’ll be amazed at the stories you’ll hear. From people pretending to not be who they are, literally running away, or actually moving across the country, people will go to extremes to avoid a process server.
However, when it comes to process serving the old adage “you can run, but you can’t hide” really does ring true. Those who naively think if they can just avoid the process server their problems will magically disappear will still have to face the music.
For example, if the process server goes to a defendant’s residence but the defendant is absent, they can still hand the documents to anyone at the residence who is of legal age, and then also mail an additional copy to the same address. A proof of service will still be filed with the court that states the person’s name, the attempts to serve the person at home, and the dates that the authorized copies were mailed. This is called substitute service, and it is a perfectly acceptable manner of serving a debt collection lawsuit in many states, Florida included.
Another perfectly valid tactic that process servers may resort to is actually publishing the defendant’s name in widely circulated regional newspapers and other media outlets, calling them out for not facing up to their legal obligations.
The right process server can still “serve” a defendant in the legal sense of the word, even if they haven’t physically handed over the document. There really is no escaping a good process server.
