Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Petition to Open a Default Judgment Denied


In the case of Sea-Z, LLC v. Filipone, No. 2017-08304 (C.P. Montg. Co. Aug. 22, 2019 Saltz, J.), the court denied a Defendant’s Petition to Open a Default Judgment in a case involving litigation over the terms of a lease.

According to the Opinion, the Plaintiff obtained a default judgment against the Defendants for failing to respond to the Complaint. The Defendants later filed a Petition to Open the Default Judgment after they found out about the litigation through a Writ of Execution. 

In support of their Petition to Open the Judgment, the Defendants submitted a proposed Answer. 

The court denied the Petition to Open the Default Judgment after the Defendants failed to offer any explanation as to why they failed to file an Answer to the Complaint in a timely fashion in the first place. 

The court also noted that the Petition failed in that the Defendants had failed to establish a meritorious defense to the Complaint through their proposed Answer to the Complaint.

The court noted that, while the Answer denied certain allegations pertaining to the Lease at issue, nothing in the proposed Answer denied the allegations surrounding the alleged failure of the Defendant to make payments and/or with respect to other alleged breaches of the Lease.

In this regard, the court found that the Defendants listing of a number of affirmative defenses was not sufficient because the Defendants did not offer any factual allegations in support of those defenses. 

In the end, the court denied the Petition to Open the Default Judgment. 

Anyone wishing to review a copy of this decision may click this LINK.


Source: “Digest of Recent Opinions” Pennsylvania Law Weekly (Sept. 24, 2019).

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.