Court Papers Not Properly Served

Landlord sued to evict 18 tenants who were on a rent strike for nonpayment of rent. Tenants claimed that 16 of the three-day rent demands landlord sent weren't served properly. The court ruled for tenants and dismissed those cases. On the second attempt at service, landlord's process server served these tenants by conspicuous place service; he left copies of the three-day notices at tenants' doors because no one answered the doors. But the process server's affidavit of service showed, on both service attempts, that he knocked at each tenant's door and moved on to the next door within a minute. This didn't allow enough time to see if someone would answer the door. The process server claimed that he could see all the apartments in the hall, and so could see if someone answered the door after he had moved on to another apartment. Tenants claimed that the halls are U-shaped and that this was impossible. The court said that, before leaving the notices at tenants' doors, the process server should have waited at each door long enough so that tenant could look through the peephole and see if someone was there.

Blackjack Realty Corp. v. De La Rosa: NYLJ, p. 28, col. 4 (11/5/97) (Civ. Ct. NY; Ling-Cohan, J)