Opinion
2021-03430 2020-01652
06-01-2021
Marlene Aponte Ventura, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Devender N. Chhabra, DMD et al., Defendants-Respondents, Manhattan Dental Specialists, PLLC, Defendant. Index No. 24421/18E Appeal No. 13987
Miller, Leiby & Associates, P.C., New York (Ernest N. Reece of counsel), for appellant.
Miller, Leiby & Associates, P.C., New York (Ernest N. Reece of counsel), for appellant.
Before: Kern, J.P., Moulton, González, Scarpulla, JJ.
Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Joseph Capella, J.), entered on or about November 27, 2019, which denied plaintiff's motion for a default judgment against defendants Devender N. Chhabra, DMD, Hanuman Oral Surgery Care PLLC and Martin Gray Safran, D.D.S. and dismissed the complaint as abandoned pursuant to CPLR 3215(c), unanimously affirmed, without costs.
The motion court properly determined that plaintiff failed to establish sufficient cause why the complaint should not be dismissed as abandoned pursuant to CPLR 3215(c) (see U.S. Bank N.A. v Nunez, 190 A.D.3d 660 [1st Dept 2021]). The excuse plaintiff offered for her delay in seeking a default judgment was not reasonable: that she failed to notify her counsel that she moved to Puerto Rico, that her counsel had to hire an investigator to locate her to sign the affidavits of merit annexed to her moving papers after she moved to Puerto Rico, and that she did not return the affidavits of merit which were sent to her for several months.