A mailed prank injured my eye, then a second crude package arrived: how to find out who sent them in New York

Attorney Answer

Start with a police report, and keep both packages and everything that came with them. Finding an anonymous sender usually runs through the company that shipped or sold the package: the police can ask it, and a court can order it to say who placed the order. New York lets a court order that disclosure before a lawsuit is filed, if you show facts suggesting a real claim — and a package rigged to burst in your face may support one. If you want to sue, the deadline for an intentional injury like this is only one year.

A police report. Deliberately causing contact meant to harass or alarm someone can be a crime. Harassment in the second degree under Penal Law § 240.26 is a violation; under Penal Law § 240.30(4), it is aggravated harassment in the second degree, a class A misdemeanor, where the contact causes physical injury. Whether an eye irritation counts as physical injury is for the police and the prosecutor. If the packages came through the United States mail, federal law also makes it a crime to mail articles that can explode or cause injury, and the Postal Inspection Service investigates mail crimes.

Finding out who sent them. CPLR 3102(c):

(c) Before action commenced. Before an action is commenced, disclosure to aid in bringing an action, to preserve information or to aid in arbitration, may be obtained, but only by court order.

Courts grant that kind of order to identify an unknown wrongdoer when the facts fairly indicate a cause of action; in Matter of Konig v. CSC Holdings, LLC, 112 A.D.3d 934 (2d Dep't 2013), the court refused it because the anonymous posts at issue were opinion, which supported no claim. If the name still cannot be found, CPLR 1024 lets a lawsuit begin against an unknown party:

A party who is ignorant, in whole or in part, of the name or identity of a person who may properly be made a party, may proceed against such person as an unknown party by designating so much of his name and identity as is known.

But that route is open only after diligent efforts to learn the name before the time to sue runs out, and the Appellate Division has listed pre-action disclosure as one of those efforts: Bumpus v. New York City Tr. Auth., 66 A.D.3d 26 (2d Dep't 2009).

The claim, and its short clock. Battery is an intentional wrongful physical contact with another person without consent; the Appellate Division set out its elements in Bastein v. Sotto, 299 A.D.2d 432 (2d Dep't 2002), a case about a face-to-face fight. A package rigged to burst in your face may supply that contact, though how strong that argument is depends on the facts, and a lawyer can assess it. The deadline is CPLR 215:

The following actions shall be commenced within one year:

3. an action to recover damages for assault, battery, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, libel, slander, false words causing special damages, or a violation of the right of privacy under section fifty-one of the civil rights law;

What you can do

1. Keep both packages, all the packaging, labels and tracking numbers, and photograph everything.

2. Get your eye treated, and keep the records.

3. File a police report. If the United States Postal Service carried the packages, report them to the Postal Inspection Service as well.

4. Write to the seller or shipper, asking it to preserve its records of the order and the sender. It may not tell you who sent them, but a preserved record is what a court order can later reach.

5. Talk to a lawyer soon about a petition for pre-action disclosure, because of the one-year deadline.

⏱ Time limits apply. A battery claim must be filed within one year under CPLR 215(3). Shipping and sales records may not be kept long, so ask for them to be preserved now.

A New York attorney can look at the specifics quickly, and most offer a short first conversation at no cost. A few minutes on your actual facts is worth more than any general guidance, this page included.