BENJAMIN NURSE v. FIGEROUX ASSOCIATES (2008)

In an action, inter alia, to recover damages for legal malpractice, the defendants appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Ruchelsman, J.), dated July 25, 2006, which denied their motion to vacate an order of the same court (Kurtz, J.) dated May 8, 2006, granting the plaintiff's motion to strike the answer on the ground that the defendants failed to comply with outstanding discovery demands, upon their default in opposing the motion.

ORDERED that the order is affirmed, with costs.

 In order to prevail on their motion to vacate, the defendants were required to demonstrate both a reasonable excuse for their default and a meritorious defense (see Hospital for Joint Diseases v. Dollar Rent A Car, 25 A.D.3d 534, 806 N.Y.S.2d 437;  Fekete v. Camp Skwere, 16 A.D.3d 544, 545, 792 N.Y.S.2d 127).   The determination of what constitutes a reasonable excuse lies within the trial court's discretion (see Santiago v. New York City Health & Hosps. Corp, 10 A.D.3d 393, 394, 780 N.Y.S.2d 764;  Roussodimou v. Zafiriadis, 238 A.D.2d 568, 569, 657 N.Y.S.2d 66).   Although the court has the discretion to accept law office failure as a reasonable excuse (see CPLR 2005) the defendants' conclusory, undetailed, and uncorroborated claim of law office failure in this case did not amount to a reasonable excuse (see Matter of ELRAC Inc. v. Holder, 31 A.D.3d 636, 817 N.Y.S.2d 916;   McClaren v. Bell Atl., 30 A.D.3d 569, 817 N.Y.S.2d 395;  Matter of Denton v. City of Mount Vernon, 30 A.D.3d 600, 601, 817 N.Y.S.2d 140;  Grezinsky v. Mount Hebron Cemetery, 305 A.D.2d 542, 759 N.Y.S.2d 386).   Moreover, the defendants made no attempt to demonstrate that they had a meritorious defense to the action.