Appeal from an order of the District Court of Nassau County, First District (Gary Frankiln Knobel, J.), entered March 15, 2007. The order denied defendants' motion to vacate a default judgment.

Order affirmed without costs.

In order to vacate the default judgment pursuant to CPLR 5015 (a) (1), defendants were required to establish both a reasonable excuse for the default and a meritorious defense to the action (see Eugene Di Lorenzo, Inc. v A.C. Dutton Lbr. Co., 67 NY2d 138 [1986]). Defendants' excuse of law office failure (CPLR 2005) was not reasonable under the circumstances presented. The facts alleged by defendants' counsel in regard to the excuse of law office failure related to events that transpired only after defendants' late answer was rejected by plaintiff's counsel. The excuse proffered by counsel demonstrates neglect, which is consistently rejected as a basis to vacate a default judgment (see Ortega v Bisogno & Meyerson, 38 AD3d 510 [2007]). Thus, the court below did not improvidently exercise its discretion in rejecting counsel's excuse for defaulting. Moreover, we find that defendants failed to establish a meritorious defense to the causes of action. Accordingly, the order denying defendants' motion to vacate the default judgment is affirmed.

Rudolph, P.J., McCabe and Scheinkman, JJ., concur.
Decision Date: July 10, 2008