A New Jersey Appeals Court has affirmed a lower court’s ruling denying an individual’s motion to vacate a default judgment obtained in a collection lawsuit, agreeing that the individual chose to wait too long to file the motion to vacate.
The background: The case at hand involves a collection action initiated by the plaintiff. The defendant did not inform the original creditor or the defendant of a change of address after moving from New Jersey to Pennsylvania in 2016. As a result, the plaintiff attempted to collect the outstanding balance by serving the defendant through certified and regular mail at the New Jersey address.
- When the defendant did not respond, a default judgment was entered in April 2017.
- The judgment was sent to the defendant’s known address, and no response was received. However, the defendant did not take action to contest the judgment until June 2023, more than six years later, when he filed a motion to vacate the judgment. This motion was refiled in 2024 after the court had initially denied it without prejudice, pending a related action.
- The defendant argued that the judgment should be vacated due to lack of notice, citing his change of address. However, the court found that the plaintiff had effectively served him at his known address, where his family received the mail. The court also determined that the defendant was aware of the judgment as early as 2019 but had waited until 2023 to file his motion to vacate. The judge emphasized that the delay in filing was strategic rather than due to any exceptional circumstance.
The ruling: The trial court’s ruling was upheld on appeal, with the court concluding that the motion was not filed within a reasonable time as required state law.
- The court further stated that the defendant’s willful delay in filing the motion did not justify vacating the judgment, as there was no evidence of any defects in the service of process or any unjust circumstances to warrant the relief.
- “Defendant does not explain why he failed to answer or otherwise defend this case — until he moved to vacate the final default judgment in 2023, around the same time that the statute of limitations expired — other than suggesting it was a strategic response,” the Appeals Court wrote. “Absent a showing of factual circumstances establishing the delay in moving to vacate was reasonable, we see no basis to disturb the trial court’s order.
