Opinion
8430/2017
09-03-2019
CREDIT ACCEPTANCE CORPORATION, Plaintiff(s), v. Ana R. GOMEZ, Aubert Bethencourt, Defendant(s).
Attorney for plaintiff: Relin, Goldstein & Crane, LLP Defendants appeared pro se
Attorney for plaintiff: Relin, Goldstein & Crane, LLP
Defendants appeared pro se
Fidel E. Gomez, J.
In this action for breach of contract and account stated, plaintiff moves for an order vacating the satisfaction of judgment it filed with the Court on April 23, 2019. Plaintiff's counsel asserts that the satisfaction of judgment was erroneously prepared and that plaintiff has not recovered any money on its judgment.
The instant action is for breach of contract and account stated. The complaint alleges that defendants entered into a Retail Installment Contract with a dealer for the purchase of a vehicle. Defendants failed to make the payments required under the contract and now owe plaintiff, to whom the contract was assigned, $5,716.63. Defendants also failed to object to statements sent to them memorializing the debt. Based on the foregoing, plaintiff asserts a cause of action for breach of contract and another for account stated.
For the reasons set forth hereinafter, plaintiff's motion is granted on default and without opposition.
"A satisfaction of a judgment may, for proper cause, be vacated in the exercise of sound judicial discretion" ( 73 NY Jur 2d, Judgments § 333 ). Indeed, a court has the power to vacate a satisfaction of judgment ( Schumacher v. Kings Hamburger , 173 Misc. 238, 239, 17 N.Y.S.2d 567 [App. Term 1940] ["Although the Municipal Court had no jurisdiction to enforce the attorney's lien against the third party defendant it had power to vacate the satisfaction of the judgment." (internal citations omitted), affd , 259 A.D. 811, 20 N.Y.S.2d 397 [1st Dept. 1940] ; Neier v. Droesch Realty Corp. , 232 A.D. 534, 534, 250 N.Y.S. 535 [2d Dept. 1931], affd , 257 N.Y. 550, 178 N.E. 790 [1931] ["The evidence satisfies us that the respondent, through its attorney, was not justified in paying the judgments to the plaintiff, Neier, personally, and that in so doing, without the knowledge or consent of the plaintiff's attorney, it paid the judgments at its own risk and peril, and did not thereby discharge or satisfy the petitioner's lien, which is in full force and effect, and for the recovery of which the petitioner is entitled to vacate the satisfactions of the judgments and to issue execution for the enforcement of the judgments to the extent of the petitioner's lien."]; Duringshoff v. O.B. Coates & Co. , 93 Misc. 485, 487, 157 N.Y.S. 230 [App. Term 1916] ).
Notwithstanding the court's inherent power to expunge a satisfaction of judgment, there is a dearth of case law addressing the vacatur of a satisfaction of judgment, let alone one which, as here, has been erroneously filed due to law office failure. One case which has addressed this issue and which has been cited several times is DaimlerChrysler Services N. Am. v. Granger , 5 Misc. 3d 865, 784 N.Y.S.2d 357 (N.Y. City Ct. 2004). In DaimlerChrysler , the plaintiff moved for an order vacating a satisfaction of judgment, which had been mistakenly filed by a paralegal at plaintiff's counsel's office ( id. at 866, 784 N.Y.S.2d 357 ). Relying on New York State Higher Educ. Services Corp. v. Ince , 194 Misc. 2d 531, 753 N.Y.S.2d 824 (Sup. Ct. 2003) and New York State Higher Educ. Services Corp. v. Espinal , 189 Misc. 2d 678, 737 N.Y.S.2d 231 (Sup. Ct. 2001), the court in DaimlerChrysler denied plaintiff's motion, reasoning that plaintiff provided no authority for the relief it sought and that vacating the satisfaction "would wreak havoc on a system that third parties rely on when extending credit and therefore public policy requires the Court to uphold the integrity and reliability of public records" ( DaimlerChrysler at 867, 784 N.Y.S.2d 357 ). The court therein held that despite plaintiff's argument that Espinal and Ince were distinguishable, insofar as the defendant in DaimlerChrysler had not repaid the sums due, in Espinal and Ince , the defendants had ( id. at 866, 784 N.Y.S.2d 357 ["Counsel cited two cases, New York State Higher Educ. Servs. Corp. v. Ince , 194 Misc. 2d 531, 753 N.Y.S.2d 824 (2003) and New York State Higher Educ. Servs. Corp. v. Espinal , 189 Misc. 2d 678, 737 N.Y.S.2d 231 (2001), as being distinguishable from a similar situation where the court refused to grant the relief requested because ‘adequate consideration was given by the Defendant’ to obtain the discharge of the debt."] ), the consideration argument was not dispositive, because "the ‘consideration’ issue was subsumed by a greater ‘public policy [which] requires the Court to uphold the integrity and reliability of public records" ( id. at 868, 784 N.Y.S.2d 357 ). The court also noted that "there are no obstacles that prevent the Plaintiff from bringing another action against the Defendant" ( id. at 868, 784 N.Y.S.2d 357 ). Thus, the holding in DaimlerChrysler is that no matter the circumstances, public policy will always preclude the vacatur of a satisfaction of judgment because some unknown third-party might have relied on the satisfaction of judgment and might have extended credit to the debtor.
Upon careful consideration, this Court declines to follow the holdings in DaimlerChrysler , Espinal , and Ince for the following reasons. First, contrary to the holdings in the foregoing cases, there is, as noted above, ample authority empowering a court to vacate and expunge a satisfaction of judgment after it has been filed (see Neier at 534, 250 N.Y.S. 535 ; Schumacher at 239, 17 N.Y.S.2d 567 ). In fact, both Schumacher and Neier , binding appellate law, predate DaimlerChrysler , Espinal , and Ince . Thus, to the extent that the foregoing courts held that there was no basis in law for the relief sought - vacatur of an erroneously filed satisfaction of judgment - this Court disagrees. Second, in both DaimlerChrysler and Ince, the court found that public policy would always preclude vacatur of satisfaction of a judgment once filed, thereby adopting the wholesale proscription on vacating the same. This Court, as will be discussed below, disagrees with such a broad proscription on the facts presented both in those cases and certainly this one. Lastly, while the court in Espinal acknowledged that at times, upon the proper quantum of proof, vacating a satisfaction of judgment might be proper, it nonetheless, like the court in DaimlerChrysler and Ince , sua sponte accorded relief using a remedy not urged by any party. To be sure, in Espinal , the plaintiff filed a satisfaction of judgment upon receiving a tax refund offset which satisfied the judgment against the defendant ( id. at 678-679, 737 N.Y.S.2d 231 ). Subsequently, the defendant's spouse challenged the offset, and the tax offset to plaintiff was reversed, essentially reviving the debt ( id. ). Consequently, the plaintiff moved to vacate the satisfaction of judgment because the judgment was no longer satisfied and the sums in the judgment were therefore owed to the plaintiff ( id. ). While, in denying the motion, the court in Espinal held that the "plaintiff provide[d] no authority for the relief that it seeks and no satisfactory proof that defendant's spouse challenged and received the disputed tax offset" ( id. at 679, 737 N.Y.S.2d 231 ), it nevertheless went on to saliently hold as in Ince , "that vacating the satisfaction of judgment "would wre[a]k havoc on a system that third parties rely on when extending credit and therefore public policy require[d] the Court to uphold the integrity and reliability of public records" ( id. at 679, 737 N.Y.S.2d 231 ). Thus, had the consideration paid by the defendant been proven, the court in Espinal implicitly indicated that it would have vacated the satisfaction of judgment ( Espinal at 679, 737 N.Y.S.2d 231 ["Initially, it is noted that plaintiff provides no authority for the relief that it seeks and no satisfactory proof that defendant's spouse challenged and received the disputed tax offset. In fact, plaintiff's moving papers leave more unanswered questions concerning the rights of the parties than they answer."] ), which should have been the basis for denial of the motion. Unfortunately, the court therein proceeded to deny the application for an overriding public policy reason dehors the record, afflicting its holding with the same infirmity as the holdings in DaimlerChrysler and Ince .
While the courts in DaimlerChrysler , Ince, and Espinal correctly cite a legal basis upon which vacatur of an erroneously filed satisfaction of judgment should be denied, all the foregoing courts failed to actually articulate the doctrine underpinning their holdings - the doctrine of equitable estoppel - and further improperly used the doctrine as a basis to preclude the relief sought by the defendants therein. This Court's issue is saliently the latter. Significantly, in discussing the public policy favoring the reliability and integrity of public records, all the foregoing cases accorded harm to an unknown and potential third-party as the basis for precluding vacatur of the satisfaction of judgment, thereby applying the doctrine of equitable estoppel. To be sure,
[t]he purpose of equitable estoppel is to preclude a person from asserting a right after having led another to form the reasonable belief that the right would not be asserted, and loss or prejudice to the other would result if the right were asserted. The law imposes the doctrine as a matter of fairness. Its purpose is to prevent someone from enforcing rights that would work injustice on the person against whom enforcement is sought and who, while justifiably relying on the opposing party's actions, has been misled into a detrimental change of position
( Shondel J. v. Mark D. , 7 N.Y.3d 320, 326, 820 N.Y.S.2d 199, 853 N.E.2d 610 [2006] ; see Fisk Bldg. Assoc. LLC v. Shimazaki II, Inc. , 76 A.D.3d 468, 469, 907 N.Y.S.2d 2 [1st Dept. 2010] [Court held the detrimental reliance is a necessary element of equitable estoppel.]; Solow Mgt. Corp. v. Arista Records, Inc. , 41 A.D.3d 219, 220, 838 N.Y.S.2d 517 [1st Dept. 2007] [same] ). It is, of course, true that when raised and proven, equitable estoppel, which is the doctrine the court sin DaimlerChrysler and Ince , and Espinal were applying, and which requires a showing of detrimental reliance, would and should preclude, when proven, vacatur of a satisfaction of judgment. To be sure, the application of this standard is aptly illustrated in cases where a mortgagee seeks to cancel and expunge an erroneously filed satisfaction of mortgage. In those cases, such relief is granted unless it is proven that equitable estoppel precludes the same ( Deutsche Bank Trust Co., Ams. v. Stathakis , 90 A.D.3d 983, 984, 935 N.Y.S.2d 651 [2d Dept. 2011] ["A mortgage may have an erroneous discharge of mortgage, without concomitant satisfaction of the underlying mortgage debt, set aside, and have the mortgage reinstated where there has not been detrimental reliance on the erroneous recording"]; New York Community Bank v. Vermonty , 68 A.D.3d 1074, 1076, 892 N.Y.S.2d 137 [2d Dept. 2009] ). The problem with the holdings in DaimlerChrysler , Espinal , and Ince , where no one sought to preclude the vacatur of a satisfaction of judgment on grounds that there was detrimental reliance on the satisfaction of judgment filed, is that no one in those cases sought that remedy. Accordingly, the courts therein denied the respective applications because credit might have been extended to the defendants in those actions by some unknown third-party. It was, in this Court's view, error to sua sponte raise that right and use it a basis for denial of the relief sought. Stated differently, denial of an application to vacate a satisfaction of judgment cannot be, as in the foregoing cases, the product of the court's own fancy.
Based on the foregoing, the instant motion is, therefore, granted. As noted above, this Court has the discretion to grant the foregoing relief ( Schumacher at 239, 17 N.Y.S.2d 567 ; Neier at 534, 250 N.Y.S. 535 ; Duringshoff at 487, 157 N.Y.S. 230 ). Moreover, here, plaintiff's counsel states that defendants have not paid any of the sums sought in this action such that it has not received any consideration for the satisfaction of judgment it filed. Counsel further states that the satisfaction of judgment was filed in error and was not meant to be filed so as to relieve defendants of their judgment. Lastly, and no less important, because this motion is unopposed, no one interposes equitable estoppel as a basis for denial of this motion and unlike the courts in DaimlerChrysler , Espinal , and Ince , this Court declines to sua sponte apply equitable estoppel to protect some phantom third-party as a basis for denial of the motion.
In addition to the foregoing, because here, plaintiff's counsel affirms that the satisfaction of judgment filed with the Court on April 23, 2019, was filed in error insofar as this case's caption was erroneously placed on a satisfaction of judgment filed with the Court and said document was actually meant for another case, the instant motion is granted pursuant to CPLR § 2001. Indeed, movant seeks to correct what is in essence a clerical error in the papers filed with the Court. CPLR § 2001 states that
[a]t any stage of an action, including the filing of a summons with notice, summons and complaint or petition to commence an action, the court may permit a mistake, omission, defect or irregularity, including the failure to purchase or acquire an index number or other mistake in the filing process, to be corrected, upon such terms as may be just, or, if a substantial right of a party is not prejudiced, the mistake, omission, defect or irregularity shall be disregarded, provided that any applicable fees shall be paid.
Relief pursuant to CPLR § 2001 ought to be granted when it does not prejudice a substantial right of any party ( Tagliaferri v. Weiler , 1 N.Y.3d 605, 606, 775 N.Y.S.2d 753, 807 N.E.2d 864 [2004] ["Accordingly, no substantial right of petitioner has been or will be prejudiced if the appeal goes forward."]; Conrey v. Tellone , 151 A.D.3d 655, 656, 58 N.Y.S.3d 345 [1st Dept. 2017] ). In this case, where defendants never satisfied the judgment, they cannot credibly assert - nor do they - that the grating of the relief sought by plaintiff will prejudice them in any way. To be sure, plaintiff's counsel states that defendants have never paid any of the sums sought in this action such that plaintiff has not received any consideration for the satisfaction of judgment it erroneously filed and now seeks to expunge. Thus, the relief granted herein will merely restore the parties to their prior and respective positions.
Accordingly, plaintiff's motion to vacate the satisfaction of judgment filed with the Court on April 23, 2019 is granted. It is hereby
ORDERED that the Clerk vacate and expunge the satisfaction of judgment filed on April 23, 2019. It is further
ORDERED that plaintiff serve a copy of this Decision and Order upon defendants, with Notice of Entry, within thirty (30) days of the date hereof.
This constitutes the Decision and Order of this Court.