Thomas v. In Rests., LLC

• Court: Appellate Terms of the Supreme Court of New York
• Decided: August 18, 2017
• Docket: 2017 NYSlipOp 51093(U)
• Status: Published

Opinion

Earnest Thomas, etc., Appellant,

against

In Restaurants, LLC, etc., Respondent.

Amos Weinberg, Esq., for appellant. Maloney Law Group, PLLC (Andrew G. Maloney, Esq.), for respondent (no brief filed).

Appeal from an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Queens County (Jodi Orlow, J.), entered March 11, 2016. The order granted defendant's motion to vacate a default judgment.

ORDERED that the order is affirmed, without costs.

Plaintiff brought this action to recover the balance due for accounting services he had provided to defendant. Upon defendant's failure to appear and answer the complaint, plaintiff obtained a default judgment. By order entered March 11, 2016, the Civil Court granted defendant's motion to vacate the default judgment.

Upon a review of the record, we find that the Civil Court did not improvidently exercise its discretion in granting defendant's motion to vacate the default judgment, as defendant demonstrated a reasonable excuse and a potentially meritorious defense (see CPLR 5015 [a] [1]; Eugene Di Lorenzo, Inc. v A.C. Dutton Lbr. Co., 67 NY2d 138, 141 [1986]). Consequently, we find no reason to disturb the order.

Accordingly, the order is affirmed.

WESTON, J.P., ALIOTTA and ELLIOT, JJ., concur.

ENTER:
Paul Kenny
Chief Clerk
Decision Date: August 18, 2017