Pasco County Motion and Order Status
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Since early last week (Tuesday 4/19/2010) it has come to the attention of your FAPPS Board that the Judges in Pasco County are tired of signing Motions & Orders to appoint private process servers. Two of the judges have issued memos stating they will no longer sign M&Os after May 1st. Your FAPPS Board has discussed this almost daily and several FAPPS members have been diligently working with the principals in the county to find acceptable answers. Key among those has been Melody Bulso, who has made many phone calls and has met with Judge Gardner, and Frank Vulpis who has updated me often and met with Judge Bray's JA.
Judge Gardner has appeared to want to help us work out an answer. I directed Melody to continue working with Judge Gardner, and asked the Board and any members who called in to "hold fire" while the Judge went through the options and met with the Sheriff. Here is Melody's status:
I met with Judge Gardner on 4/20. This meeting was scheduled 2 weeks in advance. She had mentioned to a server that she was tired of MO and wanted another option. The server called me from Judge Gardner’s office the next day and the 3 of us arranged a meeting amongst us. She had an upcoming function with the Sheriff and wanted some additional information. Upon entering chambers she handed me Bray’s memo. I asked if this was for all 4 circuit judges and she explained she and the others could do as they pleased. The thought was Mills would follow Bray’s lead. She then showed me several examples of incorrect MOs. None of these were from the “one company that handles the bulk of mortgage foreclosures”. She wants bar numbers, full signatures (not initials) and the MO completely filled out. One of her examples even had the wrong county. These errors are from the law firms however as process servers it is up to us to point these errors out to our clients and not to just submit them blindly but I digress. I provided her with explanations of SPS, CPS and the standing order that is being used in Nassau and Clay counties. This binder included the AO from Circuit certification and sheriff appointed counties. In addition, I provided applications from circuit certifications and sheriff (SPS). She liked the standing order that included a license requirement from another county/circuit as this was the quickest and easiest yet still included the requirement of FDLE and education (from the county or circuit where the license was issued) at no expense to her county sheriff. As you know budgets are tight and previous resistance to SPS in Pasco was due to budgets.
Judge Gardner appeared to want to present this information. I did not go to another Judge or the sheriff because I did not want to step on her toes, so to speak. I did offer to give her, Bray, McGrady or the Sheriff any additional information they needed. We played phone tag for the rest of the week but Friday she relayed she would follow Bray’s lead to show a united front. The thought is they will force the sheriff’s hand because the sheriff cannot handle the additional volume. Unfortunately Gardner did not make it to the sheriff’s function – she was in a car accident on the way. She faxed me her memo this morning (Tuesday 4/27) (mirror image of Bray’s). She spoke with the server yesterday and said she is optimistic that this will be resolved by the end of the week. I am not so optimistic.
I did explain the costs to Gardner and shared with her that other county sheriff’s offices are struggling with volume as it is. I explained other counties are looking at outsourcing their non-enforceable process. She knows Pasco cannot handle it. I provided her with precedence of circuit certifications and “48.021 and 48.25-48.31 authorize Chief Judge of each circuit to qualify, appoint and remove certified process servers”.
I know Frank has spent a lot of time with Bray’s office and I thank him. I know several other servers have also bent the Judge or JA’s ear on this again I am thankful. I know some attorney’s are weighing in with any relationships they may have. Still thankful. This effects all of us whether we do business in Pasco or not. I know Bob is trying to assist (thank you Bob). I have spoke with him and Frank more than once. I am more than happy to pass on the info I gave the judge if you are interested. I can get anyone an audience with Gardner but she does not have final say on this. I think Frank has Bray’s ear. I do not have a contact at the sheriff’s office and I am depending on another source with Chief Judge McGrady as I do not have a relationship. Mills and Tepper do not have the authority to assist us in this matter.
During this time I have acted upon the behalf of all process servers and will continue to do so. If anyone has any suggestions I am more than willing to try or assist. |
As of this morning, Wednesday 4/28/2010, I am of the belief that the Judges are rather steadfast in their position that process belongs to the Sheriff and he can either handle it or setup his own administration program. I have called Sheriff White, and his assistant promised to pass on my credentials and phone number for a return call. I will be asking him to setup a SPS program asap, and will offer our help in any way possible. I will certainly let you know of any additional status on this page, as soon as it happens.
4/28/2010 -
11:10 am
Got a call from Terry from the Sheriff's office. She promised to convey our conversation to Sheriff White, but warned me that he has no plans at this time to institute a program to administer private process servers. He has employees that do that job, and knows that they are about to be overwhelmed with work. She says the Sheriff has already looked into how many counties around him have Sheriff programs, would rather see any private process server program stay with the courts. It's not his fault that the judges have decided to draw a line in the sand, and he is not going to be taking on the liability for supervising a bunch of non-employees. She says he has zero incentive to do the job, would have to turn over any licensing revenue to the courts or general fund, and would get nothing but liabilities and headaches in return. I offered our services (FAPPS) in drawing up a sample plan, offered to do the education and testing, offered to obtain and forward other SPS programs. Terry said she would convey all of our conversation to the sheriff, but his opinion is pretty firm and she doubts anything will come of it in any near term.
4/28/2010 - 11:43 am
Actually spoke with Judge Gardner herself. Explained the Sheriff's position, she understands. I suggested that we find a way to get some form of blanket order appointing process servers that are FAPPS members, or members with a license from a program like the Pinellas county program. She agrees that we have to do something, letting serves languish in the Sheriff's office for weeks and having to reschedule court cases is not a good option.
She promised to speak again with Judge McGrady and Judge Bray again, and will get back to me. She stated that she really wants to find an answer, and she hates the idea that the process servers that have been calling her will be just out of business.
I restated that I would do anything from compiling the list of server's credentials that have been serving in Pasco courts, to holding an impromptu class and testing Pasco servers under FAPPS' name. She thanked me and promised again to call me back.
5/3/2010 - 9:00 am
From Melody Bulso: Nothing new. Still thinks based on Friday conversations that Judges Gardner, Tepper, and Mills are signing M&Os for now, Bray is not. Tepper wants only one individual listed on a M&O and is going to be very particular about the accuracy.
Judge Gardner owes me a call. We were going to talk about the Administrative Order options after she talked with Judges McGrady and Bray. I will try her again Tuesday morning if she does not return my call today.
5/3/2010 - 4:00 pm
From Frank Vulpis: All Judges will sign a M&O for cases out of their own court except Judge Bray, who will not sign any.
Frank also says that Judge McGrady's JA, Helen, says that if we put together a proposed program, he will take a look at it and consider it. I am going to call her back and get a little more guidance, and then will set a small committee with the goal of getting something in their hands by Wednesday.
5/3/2010 - 5:30 pm
President has set up a Pasco Administrative Order committee to draft a sample, or a few samples of an Administrative Order for Pasco county for Judge McGrady's consideration. Will need to include the order, and some guidelines as to who should be approved. The committee consists of Melody Bulso, Andrew Schmidt, Frank Vulpis, Sean Segel, and myself. "I want to see Andrew take the lead, and circulate a draft to the rest of us as soon as physically possible. When we agree on the document, I'd like to forward it as President of FAPPS to the Judge. I want this to be a FAPPS product, for all process servers. But I recognize that you four have more at stake, and more expertise than I do in drafting something good. It should include that any process server with a license in XXX counties is good, and set a time frame for review, etc."
I am pleased that all four accepted the challenge immediately. Judge McGrady is on vacation, and will return on May 17th. We intend to have it on his desk before he returns.
5/17/2010
Our example standing orders and a cover letter were emailed to Chief Judge McGrady's assistant, Helen Skidmore, this afternoon. Your Pasco County committee (Melody Bulso, Andrew Schmidt, Frank Vulpis, Sean Segel, Diana Wardwell, and myself) have traded over 125 emails, and worked on several versions of a sample administrative order over the last 10 days. In the end, we settled on a letter that was simple and to the point, and suggested that any process server be approved individually that has a current license from any of the surrounding counties or circuits. As we get feedback from the Judge, or new information, look here first, we'll post it asap.
6/23/2010
Several of us attended a meeting with the Chief Judge for Pasco and Pinellas, Judge McGrady. We thought the meeting was going to focus on the Standing Orders we had submitted for consideration, but we were met with a bit of a curve ball. Judge McGrady has convinced the Sherriff to "consider" implementing a program instead. Only if that does not take place will we go back to considering a Judge-run program.
(1) Judge McGrady was going to "continue to encourage his judges to sign the orders";
(2) Judge Bray "would consider", no commitment to changing his current status of not signing M&O's.
(3) The Sheriff (and his staff process server designees) were looking at other programs (counties) and how they work and what would be best for Pasco.
To this date I have heard nothing more. I believe that Judge McGrady and the Sherriff's spokesman were hinting at a decision in the next 30 to 45 days, with no suggestion whatsoever as to when an implementation could take place. I believe that the folks in authority know the scope of the problem, but are unwilling to commit to anything concrete at this point. I'm afraid that we are truly in a "wait and see" mode.
I'll post more on the FAPPS news page when we know more. And by the way, many thanks to several folks who made the trip to show support for the cause.
Bob Musser
President, FAPPS
www.fapps.org
BobM@dbsinfo.com
407-679-1539 |
