FORECLOSURE ACTION SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISMISSED, ISSUE WAS NEVER JOINED, EVEN THOUGH THE DEFENSE WAS FIRST RAISED IN REPLY PAPERS, IT COULD BE CONSIDERED ON APPEAL (SECOND DEPT).
The Second Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined this foreclosure action should not have been dismissed because issue was never joined. Even though the defense was first raised in the reply papers, it could be considered on appeal because the issue is apparent on the face of the record and the lower court would have been required to address it:
… [T]he Supreme Court conditionally dismissed the action pursuant to CPLR 3216 unless the plaintiff filed a note of issue or otherwise moved for entry of a judgment within 90 days. The action was thereafter administratively dismissed … .
… [T]he plaintiff moved, inter alia, to vacate the conditional order of dismissal and to restore the action to the calendar. … [T]he Supreme Court denied the plaintiff’s motion, finding that the plaintiff failed to present a reasonable excuse for not complying with the conditional 90-day order to dismiss and that the delay since the time that the referee was appointed was substantial. …
… [D]ismissal of the action pursuant to the … conditional order was improper, as issue was never joined inasmuch as none of the defendants served an answer to the complaint… .. Since at least one precondition set forth in CPLR 3216 was not met here, the Supreme Court was without power to dismiss the action pursuant to that statute … .
Although the plaintiff did not raise, until its reply papers, the argument that this action was improperly dismissed pursuant to CPLR 3216 because issue had not been joined, we may consider it on appeal since the reply papers did not present new facts but only raised an issue of law which appeared on the face of the record and could not have been avoided if brought to the attention of the Supreme Court at the proper juncture … . U.S. Bank N.A. v Ricketts, 2017 NY Slip Op 06475, Second Dept 9-13-17
CIVIL PROCEDURE (FORECLOSURE ACTION SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISMISSED, ISSUE WAS NEVER JOINED, EVEN THOUGH THE DEFENSE WAS FIRST RAISED IN REPLY PAPERS, IT COULD BE CONSIDERED ON APPEAL (SECOND DEPT))/APPEALS (CIVIL PROCEDURE, FORECLOSURE ACTION SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISMISSED, ISSUE WAS NEVER JOINED, EVEN THOUGH THE DEFENSE WAS FIRST RAISED IN REPLY PAPERS, IT COULD BE CONSIDERED ON APPEAL (SECOND DEPT))/FORECLOSURE (FORECLOSURE ACTION SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISMISSED, ISSUE WAS NEVER JOINED, EVEN THOUGH THE DEFENSE WAS FIRST RAISED IN REPLY PAPERS, IT COULD BE CONSIDERED ON APPEAL (SECOND DEPT))