Opinion
Submitted April 11, 2001.
May 7, 2001.
In a proceeding pursuant to General Municipal Law § 50-e(5) for leave to serve a late notice of claim, the petitioner appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Hutcherson, J.), entered June 22, 2000, which denied the application.
Mallilo Grossman, Flushing, N.Y. (Francesco Pomara, Jr., of counsel), for appellant.
Jacobowitz, Garfinkel Lesman, New York, N.Y. (Fiedelman McGaw [Dawn C. DeSimone] of counsel), for respondent.
Before: O'BRIEN, J.P., KRAUSMAN, GOLDSTEIN and CRANE, JJ.
ORDERED that the order is reversed, as a matter of discretion, with costs, and the application is granted.
The petitioner's notice of claim was served approximately seven days after the expiration of the 90-day period within which to serve a notice of claim. While the reasonableness of the excuse for the delay proffered by the petitioner in this case may be open to question, the absence of a reasonable excuse is not necessarily fatal (see, Matter of Alvarenga v. Finlay, 225 A.D.2d 617; Matter of Morgan v. New York City Hous. Auth., 181 A.D.2d 890; Matter of Kurz v. New York City Health and Hosps. Corp., 174 A.D.2d 671).
The respondent acquired actual knowledge of the essential facts constituting the claim within a reasonable time after the expiration of the 90-day period, and the respondent failed to demonstrate that it was prejudiced by the relatively short delay in this case (see, National Sur. Corp. v. Town of Greenburgh, 266 A.D.2d 550; Matter of Tarnaras v. Farmingdale Union Free School Dist., 205 A.D.2d 545; Irizarry v. City of Yonkers, 193 A.D.2d 746).