Opinion
Submitted September 14, 2001.
October 1, 2001.
In an action for a judgment declaring that the plaintiff is not obligated to defend and indemnify the defendants Queens Tunnel Service Station, Inc., Long Island City Service Station, Inc., and John Giannakakis in a third-party action entitled Wen-Lar Corporation v. Texaco, Inc., pending in the Supreme Court, Queens County, under Index No. 016884/96, the plaintiff appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Nassau County (Phelan, J.), dated April 17, 2001, which denied its motion for leave to serve an amended complaint.
Stuart M. Herz, Garden City, N.Y., for appellant. Henry Conan Caron, New York, N.Y., for respondents Queens Tunnel Service Station, Inc., Long Island City Service Station, Inc., and John Giannakakis a/k/a Gus Giannakakis.
Before: GABRIEL M. KRAUSMAN, J.P., SONDRA MILLER, WILLIAM D. FRIEDMANN, ROBERT W. SCHMIDT, JJ.
ORDERED that the order is reversed, as a matter of discretion, with costs, the motion is granted, and the amended complaint is deemed served.
The Supreme Court improvidently exercised its discretion in denying the plaintiff's motion for leave to serve an amended complaint. Although the plaintiff did not fully explain the delay in seeking to amend its complaint to add, among other things, allegations that the liability policies it had issued to its insured contained absolute pollution exclusions, "the failure to offer an excuse for the delay does not, alone, bar amendment absent a showing of prejudice resulting from the delay" (Northbay Constr. Co. v. Bauco Constr. Corp., 275 A.D.2d 310, 312; see also, Hilltop Nyack Corp. v. TRMI Holdings, 275 A.D.2d 440). Furthermore, the documentary evidence submitted in support of the motion indicates that the proposed amendments to the complaint may have merit, and the opposing parties failed to demonstrate that they would suffer significant prejudice as a result of the amendments (see, Edenwald Contr. Co. v. City of New York, 60 N.Y.2d 957; Chung v. Farberov, A.D.2d [2d Dept., July 16, 2001]; Hilltop Nyack Corp. v. TRMI Holdings, supra; Brock v. Brock, 256 A.D.2d 376).
KRAUSMAN, J.P., S. MILLER, FRIEDMANN and SCHMIDT, JJ., concur.