Case ID: misc_74/html/0407-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Guriam.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Simon Pociunas, Respondent, v. The American Sugar Refining Company of New York, Appellant.
    (Supreme Court, Appellate Term,
    December, 1911.)
    Dismissal — Grounds and defenses —■ Failure to proceed — Failure unexcused.
    While, under section 822 of the Code of Civil Procedure and rule 36 of the General Rules of Practice, the City Court of the city of New York may in its discretion deny a motion to dismiss an action for want of prosecution, an order of dismissal should be granted where no excuse for the neglect to prosecute is shown.
    
      Appeal from an order of the City Court of the city of ¡New York.
    Bertrand L. Pettigrew (James F. Barber, of counsel), for appellant.
    Cass & Apfel, for respondent.
   Per Guriam.

This is an appeal from an order denying defendant’s motion to dismiss the complaint for neglect to prosecute. The affidavit upon which the motion was made stated that issues of .a later date had been reached, in their regular order upon the calendar, and disposed of, and that the plaintiff had never served a notice of trial or placed the cause upon the calendar. ¡No answering affidavits appear; and the question here presented is as to whether, under section 822 of the Code and rule 36 of the General Rules of Practice, the court could, in the exercise of its proper discretion, deny -the motion, in the absence of any evidence tending to show that the neglect of the plaintiff to bring the action to trial had not been unreasonable. While under the provisions of the Code and the rule in question the granting of such motion is entirely discretionary, such discretion is a legal discretion; and, where no excuse for the neglect is shown, the order "of dismissal should be granted.

Order reversed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements; and motion granted, dismissing the complaint with ten dollars costs.

Present: Giegerich, Lehman and Pendleton, J J.

Order reversed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, and motion granted, with ten ‘dollars costs. ■