November Newsletter

Computation of Time and an FYI

This month we are going to touch on computation of time. As you can see below, we have referenced Rule 1.090 of Civil Procedure.

Florida Rules of Civil Procedure
RULE 1.090 TIME

(a) Computation. In computing any period of time prescribed or allowed by these rules, by order of court, or by any applicable statute, the day of the act, event, or default from which the designated period of time begins to run shall not be included. The last day of the period so computed shall be included unless it is a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, in which event the period shall run until the end of the next day which is neither a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday. When the period of time prescribed or allowed is less than 7 days, intermediate Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays shall be excluded in the computation.

The first thing I want to go over in these regards is the trigger date. The day of service is NOT included in the computation. Day 1 is the following day, unless the next day is a weekend or legal holiday. So, if we are serving a Summons that requires a response w/in 20 days and that Summons is served on a Friday, the clock starts the following Monday (unless that Monday is a legal holiday).

Second thing we would like to discuss is the last day of the clock, the expiration date. The last day can not fall on a weekend or legal holiday. So, let’s say we are serving an Eviction Summons that has a 5 day response time. If that Eviction was served on a Monday, the 5th day is a Saturday, so you skip that day, and Sunday, and the 5th day is actually Monday (so the 5 days is really 7).

Finally, what happens with computation of time when you have a week or less?  Well, you can’t count the weekends or legal holidays in the count.  A lot of times we see this come in to play is when serving a designated employee on behalf of a law enforcement officer. See below FL Statutes 48.031(4)(a). As you can see in part 3, it says 5 days but with computation of time, it’s actually 7 days.  So, if serving a criminal witness subpoena on a LEO, you want those served a full 7 days before the court date so we can serve the designated employee with no issue.

(4)(a) Service of a criminal witness subpoena upon a law enforcement officer or upon any federal, state, or municipal employee called to testify in an official capacity in a criminal case may be made as provided in subsection (1) or by delivery to a designated supervisory or administrative employee at the witness’s place of employment if the agency head or highest ranking official at the witness’s place of employment has designated such employee to accept such service. However, no such designated employee is required to accept service:

1. For a witness who is no longer employed by the agency at that place of employment;
2. If the witness is not scheduled to work prior to the date the witness is required to appear; or
3. If the appearance date is less than 5 days from the date of service.

Warmest regards,
Beau Charlet

November is here and the holiday spirit is in the air. Soon we will be full of turkey and either getting prepared for a crazy day of Black Friday shopping or putting up the Christmas decorations. Along with
the holidays comes daylight saving time and the return of our wonderful snowbirds here in Florida – especially in SWFL.

As much as we all love enjoying the long days of summer, the change in time does have some positives for the process serving industry. The latest sunset in Fort Myers for the month of November is 5:37 PM. Meaning when many individuals are just getting home from work, they will already need to flick on the lights just to start cooking dinner. Lights being on is a great way for our servers to identify if someone is home or even see if there has been activity within the home. This also goes for the lights on the outside
of the home. Not everyone uses a timer to keep these lights on and off which can help servers to know if anyone is coming and going from the location. On the flip side to this the sun is also rising between 6:30-6:45 AM throughout the month of November. This naturally has people waking up a little earlier and providing us a little additional time to tag individual at home before going to work.

As snowbirds begin to travel between their homes throughout the holiday, you can rely on our office to get the job done for you at both locations. Sometimes it is unknown if the individual(s) are still up north or if they have made their way south. We can either begin attempts at one of the locations to rule it out or confirm they are there. If time is of the essence and the individual could be a problem serve, we can attempt both locations simultaneously. When attempting simultaneous locations, our servers are made aware
and as usual your office is updated on each attempt. Once one address is ruled out, we will stop efforts there and continue at the other location. Once service is completed you are provided with your return which will show the correct address for service.

If you are interested in our online portal, please remember to reach out for access. Our office will send you a registration email which will allow you to use your email as a username and a password that you create.

The holidays can be a crazy and hectic time just like many lawsuits. When you are in need of a process server, please think of Accurate Serve Fort Myers and contact our office to help bring ease to the process. Stay safe driving and shopping this holiday season, we wish you all full stomachs and happy hearts.

Knock knock knock…. You’ve been served!

– Brandon Muscato

Need our help?
Call (239) 822-7299 or
Email brandon@accurateserveftmyers.com

October 2019 Job Count – 5,325

Average Number of Days from Receiving Paper to Paper Being Served* – 4.9

*This includes jobs that may be on hold or waiting for new info.  There is no way to take those jobs out of the calculation.  So, if a job is placed on hold for 2 weeks, that’s 14 days on that job which factors in to this average. So, we’re even better than what the eyes see, LOL. Some papers get served same day, some next day and some take multiple attempts/addresses to effect service. All we do all day and every day is serve papers. We’re good at it and we love what we do. Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to continue to serve your papers.