Verizon New York Inc. v. Case Construction Co.

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Jane Solomon, J.), entered January 23, 2009, which granted defendant’s motion for an extension of time to answer and denied plaintiffs cross motion for a default judgment, unanimously affirmed, with costs.

Defendant demonstrated a reasonable excuse for its delay in answering the complaint (see CPLR 3012 [d]; Finkelstein v East 65th St. Laundromat, 215 AD2d 178 [1995]). In addition, although it was not required to do so, defendant demonstrated the existence of meritorious defenses (see Terrones v Morera, 295 AD2d 254 [2002]). Concur—Saxe, J.E, Sweeny,…