NO PROOF OF MAILINGS WERE GIVEN TO COURT
After RW commenced a personal injury against the MTA Bus Company and its driver EM, the plaintiff sought to enter a default judgment as against the driver for failing to answer the complaint.
When that request was granted by the Bronx County Supreme Court, the MTA appealed.
On its review of the record, the Appellate Division, First Department, noted that RW had failed to effect proper service on the bus driver, as required by New York law. Among other things, jurisdiction over an individual is secured when a party has satisfied the statute’s delivery and mailing requirements. But, in this instance, the plaintiff was apparently unable to show that the required mailings to the driver were ever undertaken.
Because no proof of mailing had been submitted, the AD1 thought that was a “jurisdictional defect” which required the denial of the plaintiff’s request for a default judgment. And given that procedural posture, the underlying outcome was “unanimously reversed.”
Did this plaintiff do that poor bus driver a disservice?
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DECISION