Defendant's argument is not persuasive. The cases cited involved situations where defendants, prior to default, promptly hired attorneys who mishandled the lawsuit or situations where defendants mishandled the proper routing of the lawsuit such that the suit did not come to the attention of an attorney who was able to respond to the allegations. In this case, the record does not show that Defendant took any affirmative action before entry of default judgment. While Defendant's attorneys may have acted promptly after receiving notice of default judgment, this does not excuse Defendant's ignoring of his responsibility. The record does not offer any evidence that Defendant attempted to or did contact an attorney prior to the entry of default judgment.
Defendant relies upon the broad discretion the trial court has in setting aside default judgments.
Defendant, however, overlooks the fact that there was absolutely no evidence, in his motion or otherwise, to set aside the default judgment. The only evidence offered to the trial court and to this court was Defendant's statement in his motion that his attorneys did not receive notice of the lawsuit before October 20. This statement does not constitute sufficient justification for why Defendant himself did not take any affirmative action prior to default. If Defendant had offered any reasonable evidence of good cause for his failure to answer prior to default, the trial court's setting aside of the default would not have been an abuse of discretion. While we recognize that default judgments are generally disfavored, we find the trial court abused its discretion in setting aside the default judgment as it did not have any evidence before it to support a finding of good cause.