Opinion
02 Civ. 0661 (LAK).
March 13, 2002.
ORDER
In this pro se prison civil rights action, plaintiff has been thwarted in his efforts to effect service of process on defendant Y. Stewart, a physician's assistant formerly employed by the New York State Department of Correctional Services at Greenhaven Correctional Facility.
According to plaintiff's letter to the Court, several Greenhaven officials have claimed that they have no address for this defendant. One, the facility's Freedom of Information Law officer, allegedly has refused to provide the information to the plaintiff.
This illustrates a common problem in civil rights litigation against law enforcement and corrections officials. Law enforcement and corrections organizations understandably are loathe to disclose the addresses of their employees out of security and privacy concerns. Frequently, however, the officials charged with running these organizations and their attorneys refuse to accept service on behalf of the defendant employees, thus leaving the plaintiffs unable to effect service. Of course, they may not accept service without due authorization, but rarely is the effort to seek authorization made. Plaintiffs simply are stone-walled. This results, at best, in substantial and needless delays in the resolution of these matters, as the courts are forced to referee unnecessary battles on this issue.
One simple way of dealing with this problem is to afford the office of the Attorney General or other concerned public legal officer a period within which to locate the defendant employee or former employee and to seek to obtain authority to accept service on his or her behalf. If the employee or former employee agrees, the problem is solved. If not, the Court may order disclosure of the address to permit service. Presumably most employees or former employees would prefer to authorize an agent for service to disclosure of their addresses.
With these consideration in mind, defendants on April 15, 2002 shall disclose the last known address of defendant Stewart to plaintiff unless defendant Stewart previously shall have appeared in the action or authorized defendants' counsel to accept service of process on his or her behalf.
SO ORDERED.