BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON TRUST COMPANY NATIONAL ASSOCIATION v. Hudson Valley Bank, N.A., et al.  Defendants. (2026)

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Naita A. Semaj, J.), entered March 11, 2025, which denied plaintiff's motion for renewal of its motion to vacate its default, restore the action to the active calendar, appoint a temporary receiver, and issue a temporary restraining order, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Supreme Court providently exercised its discretion in denying plaintiff's motion to renew.  Plaintiff did not submit newly discovered facts that existed but were unknown to it when it made its original motion.  Rather, plaintiff asserted on its renewal motion that the original order to show cause had since been properly electronically filed and that the death of defendant borrower Jerry Vitucci divested the court of jurisdiction to issue the original order.  However, Vitucci's death was not newly discovered, nor was it unknown to plaintiff at the time of the original motion.  On the contrary, by its own account, plaintiff was aware of Vitucci's 2014 death as early as October 6, 2015, when it was informed of the death at a hearing.  Plaintiff also did not offer a reasonable justification for its failure to include the purportedly new facts on the original motion (CPLR 2221[e][2] and [3];  Mehler v. Jones, 181 A.D.3d 535, 535, 121 N.Y.S.3d 39 [1st Dept 2020];  Lower E. Side II Assoc., L.P. v. 349 E. 10th St. LLC, 118 A.D.3d 607, 607, 987 N.Y.S.2d 842 [1st Dept 2014] ).

In any event, the motion fails on the merits.  Plaintiff failed to establish how Vitucci's death would have affected the merits of this case, nor did it establish, under the circumstances presented here, that a stay of the proceedings was mandated pending substitution of a legal representative under CPLR 1015(a) (see Matter of London, 200 A.D.3d 493, 493, 160 N.Y.S.3d 14 [1st Dept 2021] ).  Before Vitucci's death, the mortgage was in default, this action had been commenced, and plaintiff had already been granted summary judgment on its complaint as against Vitucci.

We have considered plaintiff's remaining contentions and find them unavailing.