Default Judgments in NYC

“In 81.8% of cases reviewed in our study, the court entered a default judgment against the defendant.

A default judgment is a judgment based not on the merits of the case, but on the fact that a party has not responded to a complaint or pleading or has not appeared in court when required to do so.

This failure to respond or appear is considered a default.

While the judgment is based on one party’s default, default judgments require some evidentiary showing in addition to the default.

As described below, they should not be entered where the plaintiff has not put forward any evidence of its underlying claim and damages.

In nine of the 491 cases where a default judgment was entered against the defendant, the court later vacated the default judgment upon a request by the defendant.

These requests were typically based on the defendant not having received notice of the lawsuit prior to entry of the default judgment.

In one of these 491 cases, the plaintiff discontinued the action following entry of the default judgment.

As a result, in just under 2% of cases, a default judgment was entered but later vacated.

In total, 80.0% of cases resulted in a final default judgment.

In other words, the vast majority of plaintiffs secured judgments because the defendant did not appear to answer the complaint or failed to appear at a court-ordered hearing or conference.

The number of default judgments we found in the New York City Civil Court corresponds to that found in a 2006 investigation of consumer debt cases in small claims courts in Massachusetts, which estimated that about 80% of people sued on consumer debts in Massachusetts courts failed to appear.

According to anecdotal evidence, like the stories of UJC clients described above, the fact that the defendant does not appear in court often results from the plaintiff’s failure to provide notice of the lawsuit to the defendant.

In addition, many alleged debts are years old and the plaintiffs do not have current contact information for alleged debtors.

As a result, defendants do not receive actual notice that there is a lawsuit pending against them.”

“Debt Weight: The Consumer Credit Crisis in New York City and its Impact on the Working Poor” a report by the Community Development Project, November 2007