Opinion
May 17, 1999
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Westchester County (Rudolph, J.).
Ordered that the orders are affirmed, with one bill of costs.
It is well settled that a party seeking to vacate an order issued pursuant to 22 NYCRR 202.27 must demonstrate a reasonable excuse for his or her default in appearing for a scheduled conference ( Putney v. Pearlman, 203 A.D.2d 333). While a court may, in the exercise of its discretion, accept law office failure as a reasonable excuse ( see, CPLR 2005), "'a pattern of willful default and neglect' should not be excused" ( Roussodimou v. Zafiriadis, 238 A.D.2d 568, 569, quoting Gannon v. Johnson Scale Co., 189 A.D.2d 1052).
The repeated failure of the plaintiffs' counsel to appear for scheduled conferences demonstrates a pattern of willful neglect which cannot be excused by his claim of law office failure. Under these circumstances, the Supreme Court did not improvidently exercise its discretion in denying the plaintiffs' motion to vacate the order entered upon their default ( see, Rock v. Schwartz, 244 A.D.2d 542; Van Kleeck v. Horton Mem. Hosp., 251 A.D.2d 494).
Thompson, J. P., Sullivan, Joy and Schmidt, JJ., concur.