Rakosi v Perla Assoc.
2004 NY Slip Op 00331 [3 AD3d 431]
January 22, 2004
Appellate Division, First Department
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
As corrected through Wednesday, March 24, 2004


Michael Rakosi, Appellant,
v
Daniel Perla Associates, L.P., et al., Respondents, et al., Defendants.

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Louis York, J.), entered on or about October 23, 2002, which granted defendants-respondents' motions to dismiss the complaint as against them and denied plaintiff's cross motion to amend the complaint to add a necessary party, unanimously modified, on the law, to grant plaintiff's cross motion, and otherwise affirmed, without costs.

The action was properly dismissed as against defendants-respondents on the ground that it constitutes a collateral attack upon a prior judgment of foreclosure and sale. Although the evidence demonstrates that plaintiff was named and served in the foreclosure action, he defaulted and, rather than moving in that action under CPLR 5015 to vacate the resulting judgment, has impermissibly commenced a new plenary action alleging that the judgment was wrongfully obtained (see Vinokur v Penny Lane Owners Corp., 269 AD2d 226 [2000]).

The motion court should, however, have granted plaintiff's cross motion to add a necessary party, Deca LLC, which may be inequitably affected by a judgment rendered in the remainder of this case against the nonmoving defendants. Concur—Nardelli, J.P., Ellerin, Williams and Gonzalez, JJ.