J Gary Pretlow Introduces a bill to help Process Servers In NYC

Late in February Larry Yellon and Gail Kagan and Rob Gillis representing the New York State Association of Professional Process Servers, made a presentation to Assemblyman, J Gary Pretlow. We explained an ongoing problem Process servers are having regarding rule 89B of the NY State General Business law. Rule 89 which only effects cities with populations of over a million people, in part requires that process servers keep a handwritten log of every service made within the City limits. However, in recent years the NY City Council introduced legislation requiring all city process servers to keep digital records making the hand written log portion of the business law outmoded. Our servers have been over taxed by this duplicate record keeping often spending hours copying their digital records over by hand to satisfy this requirement.
In response to our conversation, Mr. Pretlow introduced a new bill A05656 into the Assembly outlined below.

TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the general business law, in relation
to process server records

PURPOSE OF BILL:

To eliminate the mandated redundancy and duplication of efforts in
record keeping by a process server that has incurred since the
inception of NYC municipal laws that now mandate a digital record
requirement.

SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:

Section 1. To amend 89-bb of the general business law adding a new
subdivision 3 to read A “third party contractor” is an independent
third party who provides services and perform functions described in
subdivision one of sec.89-cc for the purpose of meeting the data
storage retrieval requirements.

Section 2. Subdivision 1 of sec. 89-cc of the general business law,
added by chapter 340 of the laws of 1986. Each process server shall
maintain a legible record of all service made by him as prescribed in
this section.

Section 3. Effective Date

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New Bill

JUSTIFICATION:

In order to create a more efficient way for the regulators to review
the records of process servers, municipalities that have one million
or more people (NYC) have implemented a mandatory digital record
requirement that mirrors the State requirement of General business law
Sec. 89-cc. Requiring the process server to record the same
information twice, a handwritten format and a digital format. The
result of that law has created an undue burden for the process server.
This burden does not provide any benefit to the citizens of New York
nor any regulatory authority. This law will allow the process server
an option to meet the requirement of sec. 89-cc that mirrors the
requirement of the local Municipality. The process server will be able
to streamline their data recording in a tamper proof environment that
will create more transparency and reduce the risk of fraud.

EFFECTIVE DATE:

This act shall take effect on the thirtieth day after it shall have
become law.