Lawyers on both sides of a debate over the authority of the state’s sheriffs to bar private process servers from working in their counties were pressed by an active Georgia Supreme Court bench that hammered away at arguments questioning the plain language of the relevant statute and a “conspiracy” among the lawmen to freeze out private service in Georgia.
“It comes down to a gross abuse of discretion” for the sheriffs to enact a blanket, near-statewide ban on the servers and effectively nullify the law, said Parks Chesin & Walbert partner A. Lee Parks, representing the Georgia Association of Professional Process Servers (GAPPS).Some Georgia process servers work under the authority of the superior courts, which keep a list of such servers from whom litigants may choose.
