Wright v. Gerald Gardner Wright, P.C.

• Decision Date: 04 April 2018
• Docket Number: Index No. 7347/13,2015–00006
• Citation: 160 A.D.3d 684,75 N.Y.S.3d 191
• Parties: Gerald G. WRIGHT, appellant, v. GERALD GARDNER WRIGHT, P.C., defendant; 2701 Associates, LLC, intervenor-respondent.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

160 A.D.3d 684
75 N.Y.S.3d 191

Gerald G. WRIGHT, appellant,
v.
GERALD GARDNER WRIGHT, P.C., defendant;

2701 Associates, LLC, intervenor-respondent.

2015–00006
Index No. 7347/13

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, New York.

Submitted—November 2, 2017
April 4, 2018

Gerald G. Wright, Freeport, N.Y. (Colleen Mary Ni Chairmhaic of counsel), appellant pro se.

Lauterbach Garfinkel Damast & Hollander, LLP, New York, N.Y. (Ahron Weissman of counsel), for intervenor-respondent.

REINALDO E. RIVERA, J.P., JEFFREY A. COHEN, SYLVIA O. HINDS–RADIX, VALERIE BRATHWAITE NELSON, JJ.

DECISION & ORDER

75 N.Y.S.3d 192

Appeal by the plaintiff from an order of the Supreme Court, Nassau County (Timothy S. Driscoll, J.), entered October 28, 2014. The order, inter alia, granted the motion of the intervenor to confirm a referee's report dated September 9, 2014, and to vacate a judgment by confession filed in the Nassau County Clerk's office on June 21, 2013, which was in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant in the total sum of $494,943.54.

ORDERED that the order is affirmed, with costs.

This appeal concerns the validity of a judgment by confession in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant. The plaintiff is the sole shareholder of the defendant. The intervenor is the defendant's former landlord. During a trial between the defendant and the intervenor in a separate action, among other things, to recover unpaid rent, the plaintiff obtained from the defendant an affidavit of confession of judgment, which he then filed in the Nassau County Clerk's Office. The affidavit of confession of judgment stated, inter alia, that "[f]rom 2004 to the present, I have lent the Corporation the sum of $482,048.74, in order to provide it with necessary working capital to continue its business operations and pay its bills on a day to day basis."

The intervenor moved to vacate the judgment by confession on the grounds that the affidavit of confession of judgment did not comply with the requirements of CPLR 3218, and that the judgment by confession had...