Georgia Process Servers Fight for Their Rights

Process servers play an integral role in the legal community by delivering important legal documents to countless recipients each day. With the speed and efficiency offered by process servers, court cases have less chance of being called into question or delayed. Despite all of this, the process servers in Georgia have found themselves pitted against the state’s sheriffs as they fight for their right to serve.

The Georgia Association of Professional Process Servers (GAPPS) has been locked in litigation with the state’s sheriffs in an attempt to regain their ability to privately serve papers. But new rules have been proposed that would give sheriffs the power to eliminate private process servers entirely. Now, the GAPPS is raising its alarm bells and stepping up its fight to prevent these new regulations.

Back in 2010, the first set of regulations was created, and within the regulations it was stated that each sheriff “retains the discretion to permit or deny a certified process server to operate within the county of jurisdiction.” Sheriffs took advantage of this and all but two of 159 county sheriffs barred process servers altogether in their counties. Now, the revised regulations give sheriffs even more power. Perhaps the most concerning portion of the regulations comes in section D2, which has been changed from, “The sheriff of each county shall accept certification applications [from process servers] as outlined within the law and these rules,” to “A sheriff retains the power to issue or deny authorization for a process server to operate within the county of his or her jurisdiction, whether or not the process server is certified.”

GAPPS started suing for the banning of process servers in 2013, and the case has since been dismissed and then appealed. Until the appeal is decided, nothing can really move forward. Only time will tell how bad things might become for Georgia process servers.