Opinion ID: 1860489
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: controverting evidence presented by folger

Text: In its first assignment of error, Folger claims that it overcame the presumed validity of the sheriff's return by a preponderance of the evidence. [22] At trial of this matter, Folger presented the testimony of three CT Corporation employees [23] who worked at the Baton Rouge office: Mary Belton, office manager; Jenny Fitch, special assistant secretary; and Shawna Smith, fulfillment specialist. All three CT Corporation employees testified to the procedures routinely used to process documents served on CT Corporation as agent for service of process for numerous entities. The testimony indicated that a bundle of service documents, none of which had return of service forms attached, were delivered to CT Corporation at approximately 9 a.m. each morning. The first CT Corporation employee to arrive each morning, which, Ms. Belton testified, was usually Ms. Fitch, received the bundle of service documents, which she unbundled and counted. The number of service documents in the bundle would then be recorded on a legal pad; that number would be updated throughout the day as other service documents were received from other sources. Immediately after receipt, the service documents would be divided among the CT Corporation employees who would be responsible for processing them during the day. The employees then processed the service documents, eventually preparing the documents to be sent to the entities to whom they were directed, usually through Federal Express, which picked up the service documents at the end of each work day. The step-by-step procedures used to process the service documents required the CT Corporation employees to verify that the entity to which the service documents were directed were CT Corporation customers, then to activate a delivery instruction computer screen, and finally to activate a transmittal screen, which would generate a transmittal letter that was included in the package with the documents. Because of these procedures, all service documents were entered into CT Corporation's computer system, the employees asserted. At the end of the day, the number of services processed in the computer was reconciled with the number of services delivered to the company, as indicated by the running tally kept on the legal pad. Both Ms. Belton and Ms. Fitch testified that, when CT Corporation received the default judgment in this case, they searched CT Corporation's computer database and found no evidence that the Halls' original petition had been received in the CT Corporation office, or that the petition had been served on CT Corporation. Ms. Belton also testified to mistakes made by the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office related to the delivery of original service documents to CT Corporation. According to Ms. Belton, CT Corporation has received papers not intended for the company, has received service documents that had not been separated from other service documents, and has received the sheriff's return of service attached to service documents. Sometime after November 1, 1995, Ms. Belton said, the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Department changed the method of service of process on CT Corporation and started providing a printout of the service documents allegedly included in the packet. Prior to the time the sheriff's office started including that printout, there was no way for CT Corporation to confirm that it had received all the service documents it was supposed to have received on any given day, Ms. Belton noted. Following that time, CT Corporation has received bundles of service documents that did not include all the documents listed on the printout, as well as bundles that included service documents not listed on the printout, she said. On cross-examination, Ms. Belton admitted that CT Corporation itself has also made mistakes, such as sending service documents to addresses that are no longer current and accepting service documents for a company for which it does not serve as agent for service of process. The record also contains evidence of the procedures used by the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office to process service documents. Although that testimony was presented at trial by the Halls, Folger claims that that testimony, of the sheriff's office employees, ultimately supports Folger's position that, more likely than not, the petition was never served on CT Corporation. Pursuant to the procedures in place in 1995, a specific deputy in the Civil Process Department of the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office, Deputy Nora McGee, was assigned to process the requests for service directed to CT Corporation as agent for service of process for various entities. At the time of the alleged service in this case, Deputy McGee had only worked in the Civil Process Department for about two months, she stated by deposition. The procedures she used were the ones in place when she started working in that department, she said. Deputy McGee testified that she and the deputy assigned to compile the service requests going to the Secretary of State's office would open the mail in the morning, and separate the requests that were going to CT Corporation from those going to the Secretary of State and from other regular services. Thereafter, Deputy McGee would take the service requests going to CT Corporation and process the checks sent to pay for the service by the various parishes requesting service of documents. She then took the service requests in the order of parishes and stamped them with a clock. After they had all been stamped, she would separate the original service documents from the return of service documents, then count both stacks to be sure she had the same number of documents in each stack. Deputy McGee admitted that she rarely checked the stack of original service documents against the stack of return of service documents once they were separated. After counting both stacks, she would place all the original service documents directed to CT Corporation into one bundle, which she would secure with rubber bands vertically and horizontally so that nothing could fall out. Finally, she typed a list of the documents on a ledger page, using the return of service documents as a guide. The list indicated the parish that sent the documents, the party to be served, the suit number, and the check number. Deputy McGee confirmed Ms. Belton's testimony that, sometime after the alleged date of service in this case, November 1, 1995, the sheriff's department got computers and started preparing the list by computer. A copy of the computerized list was then included at the top of the bundle of service documents sent to CT Corporation, she said. Deputy McGee testified that she had earlier asked why a copy of the list on the ledger sheet was not sent to CT Corporation along with the original service documents, but that she was told that was not part of the procedure. According to Deputy McGee, the bundle of original service documents would not be disturbed once it had been secured with rubber bands except on the rare occasions when she discovered a problem as she was typing up the list. After she typed the list, she bundled up the return of service documents and secured the bundle horizontally and vertically with rubber bands, in the same manner as the bundle of original service documents was secured. The bundle of original service documents would be given to Deputy Thompson for delivery to CT Corporation the next morning. The bundle of return of service documents would be placed in Deputy Thompson's basket at the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office to be completed at a later date. Deputy Thompson described virtually the same procedure in his deposition testimony, saying that he has had to perform the job described by Deputy McGee from time to time and that everyone in the Sheriff's Office does it the same way. Deputy McGee admitted that CT Corporation sometimes received original service documents that it was not supposed to receive, but said it happened only very rarely, usually because the parish sending the documents misdirected them to CT Corporation. When that occurred, CT Corporation sent the documents back to Deputy McGee, who then modified her typed list to reflect the fact that CT Corporation should not have received the documents, at which time the return of service documents for those documents would be removed from the bundle of documents to be completed by Deputy Thompson. Unless that happened, Deputy McGee testified that she never removed anything from the bundle of service returns that she had placed in Deputy Thompson's basket. Deputy Thompson testified by deposition that he would pick up the bundle of service documents directed to CT Corporation from Deputy McGee every morning. [24] He would then take the bundle and deliver it to an employee at the CT Corporation without opening it or looking to see what documents the bundle contained. According to Deputy Thompson, the policy at the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office was to leave all return of service documents at the office, not to leave them attached to the original service documents before they were served. According to the log kept by the Sheriff's Office, he served 57 documents on CT Corporation on November 1, 1995, Deputy Thompson said. At some point either the day after service was made or the day after that, back at the sheriff's office, Deputy Thompson would sign the sheriff's return of service documents, indicating that he had served each of the documents on CT Corporation. According to Deputy Thompson, the reason for the delay in completing the return of service documents was to give CT Corporation an opportunity to go through everything and see if the addresses were correct and if they had properly been served with the original service documents. He completed the return of service documents by stamping them with a stamp that read: CT CORPORATION, by Mary Belton, then stamping them with his individual signature stamp. Although the stamp indicates that the original service documents were served on Ms. Belton, Deputy Thompson said that it was his understanding that documents often were served on any employee of a business to which they were directed. So long as the employee does not say that he or she cannot receive service, the process servers gave it to whomever, he said. Once the return of service documents had been stamped, they were mailed by the sheriff's office to the parishes where they originated, Deputy Thompson said. After the sheriff's department started sending the log detailing the original service documents purportedly contained in the bundle prepared by Deputy McGee, [25] CT Corporation would check the bundle and confirm that all of the documents listed were actually in the bundle it received. Deputy Thompson would then pick up the log and file it in the sheriff's department along with the original log sheet. Deputy Thompson testified that, at the time his deposition was taken, he did not complete return of service documents until after CT Corporation had confirmed that all the original service documents on the list had actually been delivered. [26] Deputy Thompson said that he has a rule that he will not complete a return of service document until CT Corporation has confirmed that the documents had actually been served. The list is used to confirm that all the returns are correct, he said. Deputy Raymond Antoine, supervisor of the Civil Process Division of the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Department at the time of trial and assistant supervisor on November 1, 1995, generally described the same standard office procedure summarized above during his live testimony at trial. Further, both Deputy Bennet and Deputy Raymond Antoine, assistant supervisor of the Civil Service Department of the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office on November 1, 1995, who testified by deposition, described a meeting they had with representatives of CT Corporation that occurred when CT Corporation moved to Baton Rouge from New Orleans. During that meeting, the procedures used to deliver service documents to CT Corporation were discussed and the described system was adopted without objection from CT Corporation representatives, Deputies Bennet and Antoine said. CT Corporation did not ask during that meeting for any special list of the services delivered to their office, Deputy Antoine said. Deputy Antoine also testified that the returns of service documents never leave the sheriff's department in East Baton Rouge Parish and that none of the deputies making service complete the returns contemporaneously with the delivery. He further stated that, after CT Corporation questioned whether the Halls' original petition had ever been served in this case, the sheriff's office started sending a roster listing the services contained in the bundle when it was delivered to CT Corporation. The decision to send the list was made by the sheriff's office, without a request from CT Corporation, Deputy Antoine said. Deputy Antoine also admitted that the stamped return of service on all documents served on CT Corporation would say that they were served on Ms. Belton, even if Ms. Belton was not in the CT Corporation office at the time service was made, pursuant to CT Corporation's instructions to the sheriff's office. As Folger points out, Deputy Thompson's testimony clearly reveals that he did not know, even at the time he delivered the bundle of service documents to CT Corporation on November 1, 1995, whether that bundle contained the plaintiffs' petition in this case. Accordingly, Folger argues that Deputy Thompson's return of service, essentially a recitation that he had made personal service of a given document on a particular CT Corporation employee, if not simply an unsupportable assertion, is meaningless. Our review of the record evidence convinces us that the district court did not commit manifest error when she found, on the facts presented, that, more likely than not, service was never effected on Folger through CT Corporation. The district court judgment annulling the default judgment herein indicates that the district court was persuaded by Folger's controverting evidence of the non-existence of the inferred fact. The district court thus found that Folger's evidence rebutted the presumption of validity afforded to the completed sheriff's return on service. We cannot say, on the basis of our review of this record, that no reasonable factual basis exists for the district court's finding in that regard, and that the district court's decision was manifestly erroneous. The record evidence is clear that Deputy Thompson did not know whether he delivered the Halls' original petition to CT Corporation on November 1, 1995. The record evidence is also clear that Deputy Thompson's statement on the return of service that he delivered the Halls' petition personally to Mary Belton is suspect, as Ms. Belton testified that Ms. Fitch usually received the bundle of documents and Deputy Thompson testified to his belief that any employee of a business could receive service. Further, Deputy Thompson had no specific recollection of the identity of the person who received the bundle on November 1, 1995. We also note the testimony from Ms. Belton regarding the mistakes made by the sheriff's department in making service on CT Corporation, both before and after the sheriff's department started including a printout of the documents allegedly contained in the bundle, including the omission of documents allegedly included. Accordingly, we find that the court of appeal improperly reversed the district court decision. We therefore reverse the court of appeal judgment and reinstate the district court's judgment, which had annulled the default judgment. We note that this decision is based on our finding that the district court's factual findings in this case were not manifestly erroneous. The court of appeal improperly focused on Folger's inability to prove that service was impossible and upon the evidence that, in its view, proved that neither the sheriff's office nor CT Corporation had a foolproof record keeping system. However, Folger was not required to prove that CT Corporation's systems were foolproof in order to fulfill its burden of overcoming the statutory presumption of validity afforded the completed sheriff's return by a preponderance of the evidence. Folger was only required to submit evidence sufficient to convince the trier of fact that proper service had not been made. The trial court's factual finding that Folger presented sufficient evidence to overcome the presumption by a preponderance of the evidence is entitled to deference under the manifest error standard that applies to this case. Finally, we agree with Folger's second assignment of error, in which it asserts that the court of appeal misapplied the burden of persuasion in this case by essentially requiring Folger to prove insufficiency of service beyond all doubt. As pointed out by Folger, the court of appeal specifically recited the fact that neither entity knew for certain if service was actually made in support of its conclusion that the presumption of validity given the sheriff's return was the decisive factor in this case. Hall, XXXX-XXXX at p., 843 So.2d at 634. Further, the court of appeal essentially held that a party can overcome the presumption of validity of a completed sheriff's return of service only by proving that it was impossible for service to have been made. Prior to this court's decision in Roper, the standard applied to determine whether a party had sufficiently rebutted the presumption of validity afforded a completed sheriff's return of service was clear and convincing. However, this court imposed only a preponderance of the evidence standard in Roper. 393 So.2d at 88. Since Roper, the party attacking service must only prove that, more likely than not, service was not properly made. Id. Thus, the court of appeal should not have required that Folger show for certain that the service was not made, or show that it was impossible for service to have been made. So long as the district court assessing the evidence is satisfied that the party challenging the validity of service has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that service was not properly made, a default judgment may be declared absolutely null under La.Code of Civ. Proc. art. 2002(2). Further, in the absence of manifest error in the district court's finding on that issue, an appellate court may not reverse.