Considered a Default in Payment

[buster123]

My question involves judgment recovery in the State of:
New York

Recently I sued an individual for breach of contract over a business dispute. I agreed to settle out of court and this person had to send my business a payment due on the first of every month. If I did not receive payment then on the 2nd day of the month I would have to notify the individual that they were in default and that they had ten days to pay. If they did not pay i would be awarded an automatic judgement. Needless to say, to be spiteful, this individual pays me on the 11th of every month. This month they must have forgotten and sent the payment at the last minute via messenger service in which the messenger did not get to my office until after hours and nobody was there to receive payment. The payment will be redelivered in a few days and as a result will be past the due date and will be in default.

Is this person in default or because they attempted to deliver, although after hours, are within their rights even though i did not get paid in time?

[KeyWestDan]

If you did this settlement outside of court and do not have a judgment, that was a big mistake. You are lucky you are getting paid at all. I suppose you'd have to do a new breach of contract action. If the settlement was part of the original case and was approved by the court, then you'd have contempt sanctions and other things available, though I doubt the judge would exercise those at this point.

[Mr. Knowitall]

I agreed to settle out of court and this person had to send my business a payment due on the first of every month.

Your out of court settlement is in the form of what? A consent judgment? A dismissal and a written memorandum / contract of understanding? Is there a commitment to enter into a confession of judgment in the event of default (assuming that's permitted under the circumstances and governing state laws)? What does your judgment / memorandum / contract say about how delivery of payments is to occur? "You have ten days to pay" could be interpreted as, "You have ten days to drop the check into the U.S. mail, proper postage attached." "You have ten days" could be interpreted as "ten business days".

It sounds to me like you're going to have a difficult time establishing material non-compliance, given that the messenger was at your offices before the deadline. But as they say, the devil is in the details.