Why can the plaintiff not serve papers themselves onto a defendant? I&#39;m honestly curious about the rationale behind this
<p>Since defective service has its own consequences, a plaintiff has an incentive to service correctly, so I'm curious why a neutral party has to serve in some places like California?</p>
<p>Also, to what degree can the plaintiff not be involved. For example, if the plaintiff gets a neutral person to serve the papers on their behalf, and plaintiff + server are taking a walk on the street where defendant lives, and plaintiff points out &quot;yeah that's the person&quot; and the server serves the defendant. Is that OK? Since the server technically wasn't the plaintiff, even though the plaintiff was still right there?</p>
<p>Or if the plaintiff is a company, does this mean all employees of that company cannot serve papers, or only the company leadership?</p>

<h2>Plaintiffs <em>can</em> serve defendants</h2>
<p><a href="/questions/tagged/new-south-wales" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;new-south-wales&#39;" rel="tag">new-south-wales</a></p>
<p>No such prohibition exists.</p>
<p>As to why it might not be a good idea:</p>
<ul>
<li>most people’s emotions on being served are negative. Some people react to negative emotions with violence. A neutral process server a) may mitigate the risk of violence and b) if violence eventuates, sooner them than you.</li>
<li>service can be highly technical. For example, did you know that local governments in <a href="/questions/tagged/queensland" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;queensland&#39;" rel="tag">queensland</a> can only be served by serving the CEO personally? No? Well a Queensland based process server would.</li>
<li>service is often disputed. If one of the people testifying about the service is unbiased, their testimony is likely to be given more weight.</li>
</ul>

<p>What is service? The delivery of notice of legal actions.</p>
<p>What happens if the defendant disputes the fact that they were served? The court must decide if the defendant is telling the truth. If the plaintiff delivered service themselves, it becomes a &quot;he said, she said&quot; situation.</p>
<p>So, the rationale for not allowing personal service, is that if there is a (more) neutral third party doing the service, the court can rely on their testimony.</p>
<p>Now, the server must fill out a detailed &quot;proof of service&quot; document, detailing when, where, and how (e.g. in person, via mail, etc.) the papers were served. The server must sign this under penalty of perjury. The threat of perjury is supposed to dissuade false statements, while the detailed nature of the document is supposed to allow the defendant chances to dispute the service (e.g. &quot;No, you didn't serve me papers at my house on X date and Y time; I was out of the country on vacation/at work/at a restaurant, and here is my passport/timecard/credit card receipt as proof).</p>
<p>Also, see about the multiple different types of service.
<a href="https://www.courts.ca.gov/selfhelp-serving.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.courts.ca.gov/selfhelp-serving.htm</a></p>

california service