Citibank (SD) N.A. v. Kodumal

• Court: Appellate Terms of the Supreme Court of New York
• Decided: October 31, 2016
• Docket: 2016 NYSlipOp 51601(U)
• Status: Published

Opinion

Citibank (South Dakota) N.A., Respondent,

against

Gemma E. Kodumal, Appellant.

Appeal from an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Queens County (Jodi Orlow, J.), entered March 6, 2015. The order denied defendant's motion to vacate a default judgment.

ORDERED that the order is affirmed, without costs.

In this action to recover for breach of a credit card agreement, defendant moved to vacate a default judgment that had been entered against her in the principal sum of $15,978.76 after she had failed to appear in court for trial on November 16, 2011. By order entered March 6, 2015, the Civil Court denied the motion on the ground that defendant had not established a reasonable excuse for her failure to appear. Although defendant claimed that she did not know that she had to appear in court on that date, the court rejected that contention after defendant had provided it with a copy of an adjournment slip that had been given to her by the court.

A defendant seeking to vacate a default judgment pursuant to CPLR 5015 (a) (1) must demonstrate both a reasonable excuse for the default and a meritorious defense to the action (see Eugene Di Lorenzo, Inc. v A.C. Dutton Lbr. Co., 67 NY2d 138, 141 [1986]). We find that the Civil Court did not improvidently exercise its discretion in finding that there was no reasonable excuse for defendant's failure to appear on the court date in question. In view of the lack of a reasonable excuse for the default, it is unnecessary to consider whether defendant sufficiently demonstrated the existence of a meritorious defense (see HSBC Bank USA, N.A. v Roldan, 80 AD3d 566 [2011]).

Accordingly, the order is affirmed.

Pesce, P.J., Weston and Aliotta, JJ., concur.

Decision Date: October 31, 2016