Opinion
June 14, 1993
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Gowan, J.).
Ordered that the order is modified, on the law, by deleting the second decretal paragraph thereof and substituting therefore a provision granting the defendant's motion to vacate the judgment entered December 31, 1990, only to the extent that the provision awarding attorney's fees is vacated; as so modified, the order is affirmed, with costs to the defendant.
The law is well settled that a civil litigant may not recover attorney's fees in the absence of contractual or statutory authority (see, Matter of Green [Potter], 51 N.Y.2d 627, 629-630; Plancher v. Gladstein, 143 A.D.2d 740). As no such authority exists here, the award of attorney's fees should have been vacated.
However, we reject the defendant's remaining contentions that the judgment was otherwise procured by fraud and should have been vacated (see, CPLR 5015 [a] [3]). Mangano, P.J., Rosenblatt, Lawrence, Copertino and Joy, JJ., concur.