Opinion
Submitted October 18, 2000.
November 13, 2000.
In an action to recover damages for breach of contract, the defendant appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Gerard, J.), dated January 20, 2000, which denied his motion to vacate a judgment, entered upon an order of the same court, dated September 4, 1991, granting the plaintiff's unopposed motion to strike his answer for failure to proceed with discovery pro se or to obtain new counsel as directed by a prior order of the same court dated January 24, 1991.
Max A. Bratt, Valley Stream, N.Y., for appellant.
Carman, Callahan Ingham, LLP, Farmingdale, N.Y. (Michael F. Ingham of counsel), for respondent.
Before: DAVID S. RITTER, J.P., WILLIAM C. THOMPSON, WILLIAM D. FRIEDMANN, HOWARD MILLER, SANDRA J. FEUERSTEIN, JJ.
DECISION ORDER
ORDERED that the order is affirmed, with costs.
It is well settled that on a motion for leave to vacate a default judgment pursuant to CPLR 5015(a), a defendant must demonstrate a reasonable excuse for the default and a meritorious defense (see, Wynne v. Wagner, 262 A.D.2d 556; Kolajo v. City of New York, 248 A.D.2d 512; Roussodimou v. Zafiriadis, 238 A.D.2d 568). The defendant failed to demonstrate that he has a meritorious defense to this action (see, Savoy Record Co. v. Cardinal Export Corp., 15 N.Y.2d 1, 4; Leonard Holzer Assocs., Inc. v. Orta, 250 A.D.2d 737; Palisades Off. Group v. Kwilecki, 233 A.D.2d 49 0; Goldstar Smoked Fish, Inc. v. Greenfield Partners, 206 A.D.2d 457).