April 7, 2026

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Kathleen Waterman-Marshall, J.), entered on or about August 1, 2025, which denied defendant's motion pursuant to CPLR 5015 (a) to vacate an order of the same court and Justice, dated May 30, 2025, which granted plaintiff a default judgment against defendant, unanimously affirmed, with costs.

Defendant failed to demonstrate a reasonable excuse for its failure to appear at the preliminary conference, which resulted in the default judgment (see Uniform Rules for Trial Cts [22 NYCRR] § 202.27 [b]; Biton v Turco, 88 AD3d 519, 519 [1st Dept 2011], lv dismissed 30 NY3d 1081 [2018]). Defendant's counsel, who is the principal of defendant law office, failed to sign up for appearance notifications under the New York State Court's e-track system, even after he admitted that he defaulted previously in this action for the same reason (see New York Dangerous LLC v Librot, 200 AD3d 467, 467 [1st Dept 2021]; see also Imovegreen, LLC v Frantic, LLC, 139 AD3d 539, 540 [1st Dept 2016]).

Where the moving party "fail[s] to provide an acceptable excuse for his default, we need not address whether he had a meritorious defense" (Seitzer v McFadden, 219 AD3d 1262, 1262 [1st Dept 2023]). In any event, defendant has not demonstrated that it has a meritorious defense, since the defenses set forth in its answer and papers in support of the motion to vacate are either vague and conclusory, or have already been rejected by this Court (see id.; Homelink Intl. Inc. v Law Offs. of Sanjay Chaubey, 242 AD3d 455 [1st Dept 2025]). Concur—Webber, J.P., Kennedy, Kapnick, González, O'Neill Levy, JJ.