On August 10, 2022, the Second Department issued a decision in Deutsche Bank Natl. Trust Co. v. Khalil, 2022 NY Slip Op. 04898, holding that a plaintiff did not untimely seek a default judgment when it began the process of obtaining a judgment within a year of the defendant’s failure to appear, explaining:
Pursuant to CPLR 3215(c), if the plaintiff fails to take proceedings for the entry of judgment within one year after the default, the court shall not enter judgment but shall dismiss the complaint as abandoned unless sufficient cause is shown why the complaint should not be dismissed. To avoid dismissal pursuant to CPLR 3215(c), it is not necessary for a plaintiff to actually obtain a default judgment within one year of the default, and a plaintiff is not even required to specifically seek a default judgment within a year. As long as the plaintiff has initiated proceedings for the entry of a judgment within one year of the default, there is no basis for dismissal of the complaint pursuant to CPLR 3215(c).
Here, approximately two months after the defendant’s default, the plaintiff moved for an order of reference. The fact that the Supreme Court later marked off the calendar the motion was irrelevant for the purposes of satisfying CPLR 3215(c) because the plaintiff was only required to take proceedings for the entry of judgment within the one-year time frame, and not actually obtain the judgment. It is enough that the plaintiff timely takes the preliminary step toward obtaining a default judgment of foreclosure and sale by moving for an order of reference to establish that it initiated proceedings for entry of a judgment within one year of the default for the purposes of satisfying CPLR 3215(c). Moreover, the plaintiff was not required to account for any additional periods of delay that may have occurred subsequent to the initial one-year period contemplated by CPLR 3215(c).
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).