Appeal from an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Queens County (Anna Culley, J.), entered October 8, 2009. The order denied defendant's motion for relief from a stipulation of settlement.

ORDERED that the order is affirmed, without costs.

In this action to recover for breach of a credit card agreement, the parties entered into an open-court stipulation of settlement pursuant to which defendant was required to make 12 monthly installment payments, totaling $8,896.23. In the event of a failure by defendant to make a payment when due, plaintiff was entitled to enter judgment in the full amount sued for, $13,646.50, after giving a 10-day written notice to cure. Defendant moved by order to show cause for relief from the stipulation of
settlement. In support of his motion, he alleged that his bank account had been "frozen" by the Internal Revenue Service. The Civil Court denied the motion.

On appeal, defendant contends, for the first time, that the order denying his motion should be reversed on the ground that "the stipulation is defective because [his] Chase Bank account number is missing."

It is well settled that stipulations of settlement are judicially favored and will not be easily set aside (Hallock v State of New York, 64 NY2d 224 [1984]; Nash v Yablon-Nash, 61 AD3d 832 [2009]). While stipulations of settlement may be vacated on grounds sufficient to set aside a contract, such as in instances of fraud, collusion, mistake or accident (see Nash, 61 AD3d at 832), here no such grounds were alleged. Accordingly, the order is affirmed.

Pesce, P.J., Golia and Steinhardt, JJ., concur.
Decision Date: March 01, 2011