MINNEAPOLIS (Legal Newsline) - Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson sued a Minnesota process service company and one of its representatives last week for allegedly engaging in “sewer service” by falsely claiming it had notified defendants of pending debt collection lawsuits.
TJ Process Service, based in Wadena, and process server Jeremy Umland were named in the suit filed in Koochinching County District Court.
"One of the most fundamental legal rights in the American judicial system is the right of a person to be notified of claims made against the person in court," Swanson said. "'Sewer service' deprives a person of the opportunity to appear in court to defend against the claims made in a lawsuit."
The owner of TJ Process Service said in a sworn deposition that Umland had engaged in sewer service, though he didn't know exactly how much. The lawsuit seeks a court order to determine how often Umland participated in sewer service.
Umland allegedly supplied sewer service to several defendants, including homes where defendants no longer lived. In one case, a woman had not lived in a home address for 11 years, while another man had his home foreclosed three years before he was allegedly served, Swanson said.