SOUGHT RELIEF UNDER THE WRONG STATUTORY SECTION
After the Queens County Supreme Court granted A. Caesar’s motion to amend his complaint to add the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) as a party to his personal-injury case, the agency moved to vacate that order pursuant to CPLR 5015(a). And when NYCTA's motion was denied, an appeal ensued.
On its review of the case, the Appellate Division, Second Department, noted that because the agency was asking for dismissal-related relief that wasn’t expressly noticed in its underlying motion papers, the judge assigned to the matter had the “discretion” (but wasn’t compelled) to entertain the NYCTA’s request.
In this instance, since the AD2 didn’t think it was an improvident exercise of the Supreme Court’s authority to have directed that a motion to dismiss be made (under a different statutory section (CPLR 3211)), the outcome was left undisturbed.
Hail Caesar!
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DECISION