| Bird v Bird |
| 2010 NY Slip Op 06932 [77 AD3d 1382] |
| October 1, 2010 |
| Appellate Division, Fourth Department |
| John J. Bird, Respondent, v Vickie L. Bird,Appellant. |
—[*1]
Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Cattaraugus County (Michael L. Nenno, A.J.), datedJune 10, 2009. The order, insofar as appealed from, denied that part of the motion of defendant tovacate a default judgment of divorce.
It is hereby ordered that the order insofar as appealed from is unanimously reversed on the lawwithout costs, the motion is granted in part and the default judgment of divorce is vacated.
Memorandum: Defendant, as limited by her brief on appeal, contends that Supreme Court abusedits discretion in denying that part of her motion seeking to vacate the default judgment of divorce. Weagree. "Although a party seeking to vacate a default judgment must demonstrate a reasonable excusefor the default and a meritorious defense, '[o]ur courts have embraced a liberal policy with respect tovacating default judgments in matrimonial actions' " (Dunbar v Dunbar, 233 AD2d 922, 922[1996]; see De Pass v De Pass, 42AD3d 723, 724 [2007]). In support of her motion, defendant submitted evidence that she was notrepresented by counsel and that plaintiff misled her with respect to his intention to pursue the divorceaction (see generally D'Alleva v D'Alleva, 127 AD2d 732, 735 [1987]). In addition, defendantestablished a meritorious claim to her distributive share of the marital property from the marriage ofnearly 20 years' duration (see Viner v Viner, 291 AD2d 398 [2002]). We thus conclude,particularly in light of the public policy favoring the disposition of matrimonial actions on the merits, thatthe court erred in denying defendant's motion insofar as it sought vacatur of the default judgment ofdivorce (see id. at 399; see also Dunbar, 233 AD2d 922 [1996]).Present—Martoche, J.P., Carni, Green, Pine and Gorski, JJ.