Three law firms are facing a federal lawsuit in New Jersey for allegedly harassing a man's family with multiple visits from process servers, including one who failed to wear a mask or take other precautions dictated by COVID-19.

Philip Burgess Jr. and his company, MicroBilt Corp., claim in the suit that opposing counsel in two other suits pending in New Jersey and Virginia are subjecting him to "pressure tactics" that include serving him with multiple and conflicting notices of depositions for MicroBilt employees.

Berger Montague of Philadelphia and senior counsel Jacob Polakoff are named as defendants in Burgess' suit. Other defendants are Consumer Litigation Associates, of Newport News, Virginia, and that firm's Leonard Bennett; and Kelly Guzzo of Fairfax, Virginia, and that firm's Kristi Kelly.

The lawsuit filed Thursday claims the law firms are using the process servers in an improper attempt to coerce Burgess and MicroBilt to settle the New Jersey and Virginia suits.

Burgess' home in Princeton received five visits from process servers in the course of a week in May. Two of the visits were from a server described as a heavyset male who banged on the home's picture window, causing Burgess' wife and children "to fear possible home invasion, robbery and assault" and causing them emotional distress, the suit said. On the first visit, that server, after being told that Burgess was not at home, threw a set of papers at two of his children, then walked away, the suit claims.

That server was not wearing a mask or gloves, did not maintain six feet of social distancing, and, in fact, came within a foot of the children, the suit said. In addition, the man failed to encase the papers in plastic or another impermeable covering before serving them, the suit said.

The same server returned two days later, again banging on the picture window without observing COVID-19 precautions, the suit said. He served the Burgess family housekeeper with other documents.

The suit referenced an article from a website for process servers, listing precautions for preserving the health of servers and parties receiving service.

Gerald Krovatin of Krovatin Nau.

"Defendants' further acts after issuing legal process against plaintiffs demonstrate a purpose ulterior to the one for which such process was designed. Such purpose was to coerce or oppress either through intentional malicious abuse of process or the issuance of process without reason or probable cause," said Burgess' suit, filed by Gerald Krovatin of Krovatin Nau in Newark.

The suit brings claims for malicious use of legal process, harassment, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Bennett, reached by phone, rejected Burgess' claims that he and the other attorneys were using process service to harass. He said Burgess was being served at his home because his lawyer in the other litigation, Bruce Luckman of Sherman, Silverstein, Kohl, Rose & Podolsky in Moorestown, refused to accept service for him.

"I'd lose my license if I did something like that. [The suit] is an attempt to disrupt the ongoing litigation that alleges he violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act," Bennett said.

In federal suits in New Jersey and the Eastern District of Virginia, Burgess and MicroBilt are accused of selling consumers' credit profiles to payday lenders without the consent of those consumers. Those suits were a byproduct of two other suits in the Eastern District of Virginia against payday lender Big Picture Loans and were filed after information emerged in those suits about the role of Burgess and his enterprise, said Bennett.

Krovatin said that frivolous litigation against Burgess and the improper conduct of the process server are both part of "a campaign to harass him, to pressure him and MicroBilt to cooperate" in the Big Picture cases. Krovatin said he did not object to the service of Burgess at his home "but more the manner that they did it." He declined to comment on whether the other lawyer representing Burgess would accept service on his behalf.

Polakoff and Kelly did not respond to calls about the litigation. Luckman, Burgess' lawyer in the FCRA suits, did not respond to a request for comment.

Burgess was sentenced to eight months of prison in 2010 after he was convicted of income tax evasion.