Lease Fin. Group, LLC v Moore

[*1] Lease Fin. Group, LLC v Moore 2014 NY Slip Op 50074(U) Decided on January 28, 2014 Appellate Term, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. This opinion is uncorrected and will not be published in the printed Official Reports.

Decided on January 28, 2014
SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE TERM, FIRST DEPARTMENT
PRESENT: Schoenfeld, J.P., Hunter, Jr., J.
570984/13

Lease Finance Group, LLC, Plaintiff-Respondent,

against

Shane Moore a/k/a Matthew S. Moore a/k/a Shane M. Moore, Defendant-Appellant.

Defendant appeals from an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, New York County (Frank P. Nervo, J.), dated April 4, 2013, which denied his motion, inter alia, to vacate a default judgment and dismiss the complaint.

Per Curiam.

Order (Frank P. Nervo, J.), entered dated April 4, 2013, affirmed, with $10 costs.

We agree that personal jurisdiction was obtained over defendant, service of process having been made in accordance with the parties' equipment finance lease/guaranty by certified mail at the address designated in that agreement. It is well settled that a person who has agreed to receive a particular mode of notification of legal proceedings should be bound by a judgment in which that particular mode of notification has been followed (see Credit Car Leasing Corp. v Elan Group Corp., 185 AD2d 109 [1992]).

Defendant's broad allegations of forgery and fraud — that the written agreement he admittedly signed in December 2008 covering the same subject matter that is involved in this action differed materially from the December 2008 lease/guaranty sued upon herein and that it is somehow "clear" that what appears to be his signature on the latter document "has been transposed from elsewhere" — were insufficient to raise a triable issue (see North Fork Bank Corp. v Graphic Forms Assoc., Inc., 36 AD3d 676 [2007]), or to warrant a threshold hearing on the issue (cf. 342 E. 67 Realty LLC v Jacobs, 106 AD3d 610 [2013]). "Something more than a bald assertion of forgery is required to create an issue of fact contesting the authenticity of a signature" (Banco Popular N. Am. v Victory Taxi Mgt., 1 NY3d 381, 384 [2004]). In this regard, defendant neither produced the agreement he claimed to have actually signed, nor offered a reason for his failure to produce it. Moreover, defendant failed to allege or show that the unproduced "genuine" agreement lacked the service of process provisions here in dispute.

Nor was defendant entitled to relief from the default judgment pursuant to CPLR 5015(a)(1) or CPLR 317, since he failed to establish a meritorious defense to the action (see [*2]Rich Town Realty, Inc. v Kim's Intern., Inc., 91 AD3d 563 [2012]). Even if accepted as true, defendant's professed ignorance of the contract terms must be attributed to his own negligence or inexcusable trustfulness of the other contracting party, and thus cannot relieve him of the contract obligations (see American Express Co. v Paonessa, 57 AD2d 1079, 1080 [1977]). "He cannot claim that he was induced to execute this business agreement by plaintiff's misstatements when he had an opportunity to examine the contract before signing" (id.).

THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE COURT.
Decision Date: January 28, 2014