After years of deliberation and talking about it, legislature has finally made into law for it to be a crime in New York City for a person inflicting injury on process servers to prevent them from doing their jobs a crime. For New York City process servers, this has always been a challenge. Many members of our professions have left as a result of being injured or assaulted by persons who have inflicted injury on them. Besides Department of Consumer Affairs legislation, this issue is a reason many people decide not to pursue a career in the field of process serving.
A bill signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo adds to second-degree assault provisions of state Penal Law, §120.05, the crime of inflicting an injury on process servers “with intent to prevent or obstruct” the performance of their duties. The law also stipulates that it should be considered assault by a person who seeks to prevent a process server from doing his job by “releasing or failing to control an animal” such as a dog.
Second-degree assault is a Class D felony in New York punishable by up to seven years in prison.
In a letter to Gov. Cuomo in June, the head of the state Professional Process Servers Association, Larry Yellon of Orchard Park, said the level of “hostility and aggression” toward process servers has increased in recent years and sometimes escalated past verbal abuse to physical violence. Yellon said process servers are an integral part of the judicial system by providing a direct link between the parties and the courts. “They don’t deserve to be brutalized for simply doing their jobs,” he wrote to Cuomo.
Yellon said previously to enactment of the new statute, those injuring process servers could only be charged with misdemeanors.
The bill was sponsored by state Assemblyman J. Gary Pretlow, D-Mount Vernon, and Sen. Catherine Young, R-Olean. Cuomo signed the bill Aug. 19.
This is a big step in the right direction for the industry and will assist NYC process servers in doing their jobs more efficiently in the future.
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