The Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey has affirmed a lower court’s ruling that an individual who was sued for an unpaid debt and failed to respond waited too long to file a motion to vacate the default judgment against her.
The Background: The original collection lawsuit was filed by the plaintiff in 2013. The defendant was served with the complaint, but never responded. A default judgment was entered against the defendant. The plaintiff then obtained a wage execution. Things laid dormant for six years until the defendant filed a class action against the plaintiff, claiming the plaintiff engaged in debt collection activity without obtaining the proper license to do so in New Jersey. The case ended up before the Appellate Division and it affirmed the dismissal of the class action because the individual could have challenged the alleged infraction during the collection lawsuit.
- The defendant then filed a motion to vacate the default judgment and wage execution. That was denied because the motion was not filed within a reasonable time, which the defendant appealed.
The Ruling: On appeal, the defendant cited two cases involving whether collectors had the proper licenses to collect in the state and decisions that vacated default judgments, but those cases were different, the Appeals Court noted, because in this situation, the defendant had filed a lawsuit of her own.
- “The class action filing reveals she knew, at least as of 2019, about the CFLA claim, which she now reasserts to vacate the December 2013 judgment,” the Appeals Court wrote. “Yet, Toft fails to explain why she let four years expire after the class action was dismissed to move to vacate the default judgment.”
- Waiting 10 years after the default judgment was obtained and four years after the dismissal of the defendant’s class action is just too long and “belie the notion that Toft’s motion to vacate was filed within a time.”
