Another Week, Another Tort

Well it’s Friday evening and the week is over. I had no idea how difficult it would prove to be, to take the time to write. However it’s a task that I enjoy so I am determined to pursue it.

I’ve had a few inquiries about learning to serve process. Kind of surprised me. If enough people want to know about it I’ll provide you with all the secrets . I know it backwards and forwards. From the legal as well as the business aspect and I can show you how to make money doing it.

What a week it was. Time goes so fast when you are busy. Sometimes I find myself asking myself if I can really tell the days apart. Sometimes that’s good. Sometimes it’s not.

There were several interesting things that I'd like to write about, but I have not yet devised a formula through which I can facilitate the "protection of the innocent" in my cases!

I am getting some advice on the subject so I hope that the future will bring more realism to my case descriptions, as well as reasonable protection for the people I am talking about. No one likes to see their lives paraded in public. It has become an absolute necessity, that I excercise diligence, to assure that individuals identities are protected. It's all part of the learning process for me.

Last Sunday, as I mentioned in my first post, I attempted to determine whether or not a person was living at a specific address by going to that address and actually observing it. I knew my chances of finding out anything of value were small to none. Nothing ever works when you do it ad hoc. No plans. I just thought, as I have a million times, I’d get lucky. And a million times I’ve been wrong. In this business you’ve got to be prepared to pay for your success with very hard work and a truck load of diligence. Short of that, you are wasting your time. So even with all of my experience, I love to tempt fate once in a while…just to see if she’s finally starting to let up on me. Well, she’s not.

So I drove up there in the evening and sure enough, the subject’s car was in the driveway again. I decided to wait around and see if I could photograph him there. If he did not come out, I was going to be stuck with just seeing the car there without him. That’s what happened the last time I had gone up there.

I parked in front of a large, grand residence, 2 houses away. Naturally the vehicle I was using had dark tinted windows and it’s almost impossible to see if anyone is in the car (there are some really funny stories about being on surveillance and having people come up and lean on the car, which they can’t see into, while you sitting there trying not to move or make any noise).

I sat there for about an hour and generally observed what was going on in the neighborhood. It was pretty quiet. The residence is on a dead end street, in a nice waterfront neighborhood. Just about the time I thought my subject might be leaving for dinner, after having sat where I was for over an hour, a neighbor started to get nosy.

I had noticed this guy walking up and down the street twice in the previous hour and did not think much of it. He was older, 65 or so, very grey, about 6 feet 170 pounds, dressed in shorts and a tee shirt. He seemed to be in pretty good shape, so I thought the walking was probably part of his fitness routine. Well, maybe the first pass was, but the second was definitely inquisitive. As I watched him walk past the second time, he made a determined effort, to see if anyone was in my car.

At that point I had to decide whether or not to stay or leave. If I stayed I would have to confront him, and to do that, I needed a suitable pretext. After he passed me the third time, I knew he would be walking by me again to get back to his residence at the end of the street. I figured I had only a few minutes to make up my mind because I was fairly sure that if I stayed and did not confront him, he would take action of some kind when he got back home. He was just too curious.

I had sized him up as a nosey type when I first saw him. I figured that if I did not get him off my trail on his last pass to home, the action I was thinking he might take would be to call the local police (which irritates them). That would also be an inconvenience to me, because it would (1) give up my surveillance spot, and (2) waste my time while they checked my I.D.

That only left me with confrontation, so I rolled down the driver’s window of my vehicle and prepared to greet him when he came walking back. As he approached, he did not notice the window was down. He finally saw it when he was walking right next to it. I startled him when I said, “Hi. Beautiful evening isn’t it?” in a fairly loud voice.

He came to a screeching halt and stepped back one step. He sized me up and tried to control his anger, obviously precipitated by me, when I startled him. I smiled at him, waiting for him to recover and decide how he was going to respond to me. In about 20 seconds, he was able to regain some composure, but friendly, he was not.

Without preface, he took the offensive and elected to answer my greeting by saying, “What are you doing parked in front of this house for so long?” No doubt that the tone of his voice indicated that he thought he owned the neighborhood!

I looked at him, held up my camera and said, “I take pictures for the bank and as you know this residence is for sale (I had seen the for sale sign in the back yard leaning up against the house and it was dark, no cars in the driveway). I’m supposed to meet someone from the bank here to photograph the interior. Doesn’t look like he’s going to show up. He was supposed to be here by 7:00 pm.”

What do you mean “bank”. Why would any bank want pictures of the inside? He said. His curiosity peaked (I told you he was nosey)

Oh, I said. You didn’t know it was in foreclosure? Well, of course he didn’t, and neither did I, but it was a great way to start a conversation about the people who used to live there. You know. The usual gossip. Mr. Neighborhood Watch said the guy who lived there was supposed to be a big executive, but he, with his years as an executive himself, knew, after observing the man and his wife there for 2 years, that they would never be able to maintain. As we spoke his demeanor began to change. He almost began to pontificate. I guess he was gratified that he was finally proven right about “those damn phoney neighbors”. I’m sure he’s told that same story many times while the people still lived there. Probably to anyone who would listen, but most likely, to, what I could imagine, was his long suffering wife.

After that little conversation he went scurrying home, no doubt to tell Mrs. Neighborhood Watch that he had been right about the “people down the street” all along, again.

I did not see him for the rest of the night. I left at 10:00 pm and did not see the object of my surveillance either. I documented, with photos, my presence and the presence of his vehicle. That’s about all that could be done without more money for surveillance; a real surveillance next time, instead of this hit and miss stuff.

My company is trying to find 2 new Certified Process Servers to serve process in the North end of Palm Beach County. Areas of service are typically divided into easy to serve sections. Right now we’re looking for North of Boynton Beach to Okeechobee Blvd., West to Wellington. Then, the second new server would handle North of Okeechobee all the way to Jupiter, including “the acreage”. I spoke with one guy today. He’s fairly new at it and has not done general work. He’s only served in a specialized area so if we do use him he’ll need training.

I have continued to make inquiries into what law enforcement agencies might be interested in helping my client who was defrauded by a company on the internet for $8k. At this point I’m thinking I may have to tell her I just can’t help her…..no one can. That’s why the crooks in the real world just keep getting richer. The concept of justice just does not work in most cases and it’s not for a lack of laws!

There’s roughly 5082 arrest statute citations in Florida. Oh, that may not sound like many. Maybe someday we’ll list them. Then you can peruse them and estimate how many of them you violate every day. You’ll be surprised at how incredibly easy it is to put you in jail.... and keep you there.

A good summation of my feelings on the matter come from Tommy Chong. A man sitting in the front row of one of Chong’s lectures yelled at Tommy, “ Hey Tommy! What’s it like to be in jail?” Tommy looked at him and slowly shaking his head said, “You’re gonna find out!”

At any rate, so far, I have not found out exactly who to approach about helping her. Lots more happened this week. When I started I thought I’d be able to do a full week, each week and talk about every case, but I’m learning. I’ll just have to pick things that I find interesting and hope you find them the same.