On April 5, 2023, the Second Department issued a decision in HSBC Bank USA, N.A. v. Hutchinson, 2023 NY Slip Op. 01782, holding that a motion to vacate a default judgment should have been denied because of the failure to explain and justify law office failure, explaining:
A plaintiff seeking to vacate a default in appearing at a conference is required to demonstrate both a reasonable excuse for its default and a potentially meritorious cause of action. Where the claim is supported by a detailed and credible explanation of the default, the court may accept law office failure as a reasonable excuse. Conclusory and unsubstantiated allegations of law office failure are not sufficient. Mere neglect is not a reasonable excuse.
Here, the plaintiff’s allegation of law office failure was conclusory and unsubstantiated. In an affirmation in support of the motion, inter alia, to vacate the order of dismissal, the plaintiff’s counsel described her office’s standard practices and procedures for receiving and processing notices and orders, and posited that her office had not received notice of the scheduled conference because there were no notes, scanned images, or calendar steps in the files that she reviewed. The plaintiff, however, failed to provide an affidavit from anyone with personal knowledge of the purported law office failure, provide any details regarding such failure, or provide any other evidence of the system’s purported breakdown that led to counsel’s nonappearance at the conference. Moreover, the plaintiff failed to provide a reasonable excuse for its delay in moving to vacate the order of dismissal. Since the plaintiff failed to proffer a reasonable excuse its default, it is unnecessary to determine whether the plaintiff demonstrated the existence of a potentially meritorious cause of action.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted) (emphasis added).