Supreme Court Abused Its Discretion by Vacating a Judgment Which Was Not Appealed by the Defendant

The First Department, in a full-fledged opinion by Justice Manzanet-Daniels, reversing Supreme Court, determined defendant Port Authority’s motion to vacate a judgment should not have been granted. Plaintiff, Nash, was injured in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and was awarded a multi-million dollar judgment after trial. The Port Authority did not appeal the judgment, but sought to vacate the judgment pursuant to CPLR 5015 (a), based upon the results of an appeal in an unrelated “companion” case (Ruiz), which held the Port Authority immune from such suits. Supreme Court granted the motion and the First Department reversed, explaining that the Port Authority’s failure to appeal could not be “remedied” using Supreme Court’s discretionary “CPLR 5015” powers:

The Port Authority made a strategic decision not to appeal either the liability or the damages determination in Nash, but to prosecute the Ruiz case instead. The Port Authority thereafter abandoned any claim that it was not liable to Nash, and represented to the Court of Appeals that a reversal in Ruiz would not affect cases like Nash’s that had been finally determined. Having failed to seek leave to appeal from Nash’s affirmed final judgment, the Port Authority ought not to profit from its misrepresentations to the detriment of Nash, whose judgment was indisputably final.

As Professor Siegel noted in the Practice Commentaries accompanying CPLR 5513, “[t]he time in which to appeal or to move for leave to appeal if leave is necessary is one of the most rigid in all of procedure. Its passing without the proper step being taken forfeits the appeal and puts an end to the matter . . .” (David D. Siegel, Practice Commentaries, McKinney’s Cons Laws of NY, Book 7B, CPLR 5513:1).

While a court under CPLR 5015(a) might possess some limited jurisdiction to vacate a final judgment — for example, where the court purporting to enter judgment lacked subject matter jurisdiction — that discretion must be sparingly exercised lest final judgments be subject to never-ending attack, undermining the sanctity and finality of judgments. As Justice Graffeo noted in her partial dissent, “We generally do not reward litigants for failing to assert arguments in a timely fashion — with few exceptions, claims not promptly advanced are deemed waived or forfeited and this proposition applies to the right to seek reversal of a judgment on the ground that it is erroneous on the facts or law (i.e., the type of argument made on direct appeal) . . . Simply stated, when a party allows its appellate rights to lapse, it forfeits the right to challenge any issue it could have raised on direct appeal” (22 NY3d at 227). The Port Authority’s motion to vacate the Nash judgment was predicated on an issue that had been litigated in Nash and would have been reviewable on appeal. The Port Authority ought not to be permitted a second bite at the apple at the expense of the elderly plaintiff, who suffered traumatic brain injuries over 20 years ago, and will now never see a penny of her $5.2 million final judgment. Nash v Port Auth of NY & NJ, 2015 NY Slip Op 06095, 1st Dept 7-14-15