Clark v. New York City Housing Authority
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:20-cv-00251
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Clark v. New York City Housing Authority, Judge Gorenstein allowed NYIES to seek relief from default and withdrew Clark’s default-judgment motion.
NYIES was allowed to file a formal motion to set aside the default; Clark’s default-judgment motion was deemed withdrawn without prejudice to reinstatement, and discovery deadlines were postponed.
What happened
In La’Shaun Clark v. New York City Housing Authority, La’Shaun Clark served the amended complaint on New York Insulation & Environmental Services (NYIES) and obtained a certificate of default after NYIES did not answer within 21 days. NYIES then asked the court to cancel the certificate and allow it to file an answer, while Clark sought a default judgment.
The court found that the 21-day period had expired and that NYIES’s claim that it did not receive a mailing from the New York Secretary of State was not, by itself, enough to show the required good cause for canceling the default. But because a default judgment can have serious consequences, the court allowed NYIES to file a formal motion to set aside the default.
Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein treated NYIES’s letter as a request to schedule that motion and waived the usual pre-motion conference requirement. Clark’s default-judgment motion was deemed withdrawn without prejudice to reinstatement if the default is not set aside, and discovery deadlines were postponed until NYIES’s status is resolved.
The detailed version
- Clark v. New York City Housing Authority · No. 1:20-cv-00251
- Paul Engelmayer
- Apr. 26, 2021
Background
La’Shaun Clark obtained a certificate of default against New York Insulation & Environmental Services (NYIES) on August 14, 2020. She later moved for a default judgment, meaning a judgment requested because a defendant failed to respond, but that motion was deemed withdrawn after the court found that the certificate did not show proper service.
The court gave Clark until April 30, 2021, to serve the amended complaint on NYIES. Clark filed affidavits showing service on April 5 and 7, 2021, and then obtained another certificate of default on April 21. NYIES’s counsel appeared the next day and asked the court to vacate, or set aside, the certificate of default and allow NYIES to answer. Clark filed another motion for a default judgment.
Court’s analysis
NYIES argued that the 21-day period for answering had not expired. The court rejected that argument, finding that Clark had properly served the amended complaint by serving the New York Secretary of State on March 18, 2021, and that the 21-day period had expired before the certificate of default was issued.
The court also stated that NYIES’s assertion that it never received a mailing from the Secretary of State was insufficient by itself to establish “good cause,” the standard required under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 55(c) to set aside an entry of default.
Despite those findings, the court concluded that the serious effect of a default judgment required NYIES to have an opportunity to file a formal motion to set aside the default. The court did not itself state that the default was vacated.
Ruling and effect
Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein construed NYIES’s letter motion as a request for a pre-motion conference to file a motion to set aside the default and waived the pre-motion conference requirement. NYIES was directed to file its motion by May 3, 2021; any opposition was due May 10, and any reply was due May 17. The parties could extend those deadlines by agreement if they disclosed the agreement to the court.
In light of that ruling, Clark’s default-judgment motion was deemed withdrawn without prejudice to reinstatement if the default was not set aside. The court also postponed the deadlines in the prior scheduling order indefinitely because discovery could not proceed until NYIES’s status was resolved.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.