Opinion
Submitted February 28, 2000.
April 3, 2000.
In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, the defendants appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Berler, J.), dated May 7, 1999, which conditionally granted the plaintiff's motion to strike their answer, unless they appeared for an examination before trial on a date certain.
Norman Volk Associates, P.C., New York, N.Y. (Michael I. Josephs of counsel), for appellants.
Lite Russell, West Islip, N.Y. (Michael J. Montgomery of counsel), for respondent.
CORNELIUS J. O'BRIEN, J.P., THOMAS R. SULLIVAN, WILLIAM D. FRIEDMANN, SANDRA J. FEUERSTEIN , JJ.
DECISION ORDER
ORDERED that the order is affirmed, with costs.
The Supreme Court properly issued an order conditionally granting the motion to strike the defendants' answer due to the their repeated failure to appear for examinations before trial, in violation of the preliminary conference order (see, Rowe v. Lee Gee Sook, 224 A.D.2d 404, 405 ; Spataro v. Ervin, 186 A.D.2d 793, 794 ;Montgomery v. Colorado, 179 A.D.2d 401, 402 ; Mills v. Ducille, 170 A.D.2d 657, 658 ; Foti v. Suero, 97 A.D.2d 748 ).
Contrary to the claim made by the defendant Tahitian Taxi, Inc. (hereinafter Tahitian), we construe the order as applying to both defendants based upon their respective, numerous defaults. As a result, the order does not sanction Tahitian based solely on its codefendant's default (see, Moriates v. Powertest Petroleum Co., 114 A.D.2d 888 ).