Connecticut Process Server State Marshals in All 8 Counties, Under C.G.S. § 52-50

Section 52-50(a) directs process to a state marshal, a constable or another proper officer authorized by statute, and a writ addressed “to any proper officer” reaches any of them. An indifferent person may be named only where a statute authorizes it (§ 52-50(b)), and one who serves knowing there is no such authority commits a class A misdemeanor. Section 52-53 is one such statute: on a special occasion a state marshal may depute any proper person in writing on the back of the process, and that service is valid once the deputy swears before a justice of the peace to faithful service and to not filling out the process, and the justice certifies the oath on the process. Under § 6-38a(a), state marshals are the officials with the authority and duty to serve process in the counties.

Section 6-38 caps the state marshals appointed in each county, from sixty-two in Hartford County to seven in Windham County. Under § 6-38b(i), as amended by Public Act 26-80 (effective October 1, 2026), the State Marshal Commission fills a county vacancy with an applicant who is an elector of that county, whose permanent place of abode, domicile and residence is there and who is not otherwise disqualified, and every applicant is subject to the Commission’s application, examination, bonding, investigation, interview and training requirements. Process in a civil action served by an officer before giving the bond the law requires abates (§ 52-51). A marshal may not allow another person to serve process in his or her place, bill for work not actually performed or knowingly make a false or illegal return (§ 6-38d).

Section 52-57(a) has process served by leaving a true and attested copy, including the complaint, with the defendant or at the defendant’s usual place of abode in Connecticut, and § 52-54 likewise allows an attested copy to be left with the defendant or at the usual place of abode, as an alternative to the officer reading the writ and complaint in the defendant’s hearing. Neither section names a person who must take the copy or sets an age for one; the copy is left at the abode, and the officer’s return then notes the address where it was left (§ 52-54). Section 52-57(a) applies “except as otherwise provided,” so the rules for entities, towns and the State below govern those defendants.

Process returnable to the Superior Court is served at least twelve days, inclusive, before the return day (§ 52-46). Outside summary process, § 52-48(a) lets that day be any Tuesday in any month, form JD-CV-1 marks the return date “Must be a Tuesday,” and § 52-48(b) sets it no later than two months after the date of the process. The process then goes back to the Superior Court clerk at least six days before the return day (§ 52-46a), except in summary process actions, actions begun with a prejudgment remedy where a defendant in a commercial transaction waived notice and hearing under chapter 903a, and petitions for parentage and support.

Except in an administrative appeal governed by § 4-183, § 52-593a(a) keeps the action from being lost to the limitation period if the process is personally delivered to a state marshal, constable or other proper officer within that period and served, as provided by law, within thirty days of delivery. Only the original process printed on paper and personally signed in ink by the issuing authority, with copies enough for service, counts as “process to be served,” and the officer endorses the delivery date under oath on the return (§ 52-593a(b)). Separately, § 52-50a(g)(2) bars sending process to a marshal electronically when a limitation period is tolling within sixty days. Ask counsel how the deadline applies to your case.

Section 52-57(b) names the officials for each public defendant: a town through its clerk, assistant clerk, deputy clerk, manager or one of its selectmen; a city through its clerk, assistant clerk or deputy clerk or its mayor or manager; and a borough, school district or other municipal or quasi-municipal corporation through the officials listed for it. A board, commission, department or agency of a town, city or borough, and a municipal employee sued over the employee’s duties or employment, are served through the municipal clerk, assistant clerk or deputy clerk with two copies, one of which the clerk forwards. Section 52-57 no longer covers counties: a 1959 act deleted those provisions, county government having been abolished. The State and its institutions, boards, commissions, departments and administrative tribunals, and their officers, servants, agents and employees, may be served by a proper officer leaving a true and attested copy, including the complaint, with the Attorney General at the office in Hartford, or sending one there by certified mail, return receipt requested (§ 52-64(a)); § 52-64(b) sets its own method when an incarcerated person sues.

A partnership may be served by personally serving any one partner within Connecticut. If none of the partners is a Connecticut resident, service may be made on the Secretary of the State, and before the return date the officer mails a copy of the writ and complaint by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, to the last-known address of every partner named in the writ who was not personally served; the officer’s return includes a statement of that mailing and the receipt (§ 52-57(d)). A voluntary association is served on its presiding officer, secretary or treasurer. If none of them is a Connecticut resident and the association is doing business or carrying out its operations or functions in the state, it is deemed to have appointed the Secretary of the State as its attorney: the officer leaves a true and attested copy and the statutory fee with or at that office at least twelve days before the return day and sends a like copy, endorsed with that service, to the association’s last-known address by registered or certified mail, postage prepaid (§ 52-57(e)).

A corporation formed under the laws of another state, a foreign country or the United States may be served on the officers and agents § 52-57(c) names, or on its agent appointed under § 33-922. If a foreign corporation has no registered agent or the agent cannot with reasonable diligence be served, has withdrawn under § 33-932, or has had its certificate of authority revoked under § 33-936, a proper officer or other person lawfully empowered to serve may send the process by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, to its secretary at the principal office shown in its application for a certificate of authority or its most recent annual report (§ 33-929(b)). An LLC or registered foreign LLC is served by leaving a true and attested copy with its registered agent or a manager or member, or at that person’s usual place of abode in Connecticut (§ 34-243r(a)). Where the Secretary of the State is a foreign LLC’s appointed agent, two true and attested copies go to that office with the required fee, in hand or by registered or certified mail, effective when the office receives them (§ 34-243r(b)). With no agent, or one who cannot with reasonable diligence be served, registered or certified mail or similar commercial delivery to the principal office or mailing address is allowed (§ 34-243r(c)); and if (a) and (b) fail, a copy may be handed to the manager or to the individual in charge of a regular place of business or activity who is not a plaintiff (§ 34-243r(d)).

Civil process may not be served outside the United States in violation of any applicable treaty or convention, including the Hague Convention on Service of Process Abroad (§ 52-59d(a)). If service cannot be made under the treaty or convention within sixty days, the Superior Court may, on application, order service on terms it deems reasonably calculated to give the defendant actual notice in time to defend (§ 52-59d(b)). Practice Book § 11-8 likewise lets the judicial authority issue an order of notice on any party’s application when treaty service has not been made within sixty days from the issuance of the summons.

Practice Book § 10-30 lists insufficiency of process and insufficiency of service of process among the grounds for a motion to dismiss, and a defendant contesting the court’s jurisdiction files that motion within thirty days of filing an appearance. Under § 10-32, a claim of lack of jurisdiction over the person, insufficiency of process or insufficiency of service of process is waived if it is not raised by a motion to dismiss filed in the sequence §§ 10-6 and 10-7 set and within the § 10-30 time. For the plaintiff, C.G.S. § 52-72 directs the court, on payment of taxable costs, to allow a proper amendment of process that is defective for any reason; the amended process is served like other civil process and has the same effect, from its service, as if originally proper in form.

Under the Connecticut Interstate Depositions and Discovery Act, C.G.S. §§ 52-655 to 52-660, which reaches only a subpoena in a civil or probate action issued under authority of a court of record of another state, a party submits to a clerk of the Superior Court in the judicial district where discovery is sought (or a Probate Court clerk in that probate district) the original or a true copy of the foreign subpoena, the prescribed form and the issuance fee § 52-259 sets (in the Probate Court, § 45a-106a). The request is not an appearance in any Connecticut court. The clerk then promptly issues a subpoena that incorporates the terms used in the foreign subpoena, with the counsel affidavit, caption and docket number § 52-657(c) requires. That subpoena is served in accordance with § 52-148e, the section under which a Connecticut judge or clerk, justice of the peace, notary public or Commissioner of the Superior Court issues deposition subpoenas, and §§ 52-148a to 52-152 and 52-156 to 52-157 apply to it (§ 52-658). A person commanded to produce documents may serve written objection on the issuing authority within fifteen days after service, or by the compliance time if that is less than fifteen days after service (§ 52-148e(c)). Protective orders and requests to enforce, quash or modify go to the Superior Court or Probate Court where discovery is sought (§ 52-659).

Under C.G.S. § 52-143(a), a witness subpoena is served by an officer or an indifferent person (or, in a criminal case with a public defender or assigned counsel, by a Division of Public Defender Services investigator), not less than eighteen hours before the time set for the witness to appear unless the court orders otherwise. A subpoena to a physician may be served on the office manager or person in charge at the physician’s office or principal place of business, who acts as the physician’s agent (§ 52-143(f)). The fine, damages and capias in § 52-143(e) reach a served witness to whom one day’s attendance and fees for traveling to court were tendered and who fails to appear and testify without reasonable excuse. Section 52-260(a) sets the witness fee for attendance and the mileage for travel to the place of trial.