Karissa Kagiliery & a. v. 274 Amherst Street LLC ( 2023 )

THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
SUPREME COURT
In Case No. 2023-0253, Karissa Kagiliery & a. v. 274
Amherst Street LLC, the court on October 11, 2023, issued the
following order:
The court has reviewed the written arguments and the record submitted
on appeal, and has determined to resolve the case by way of this order. See
Sup. Ct. R. 20(2). The defendant, 274 Amherst Street LLC, appeals a small
claim judgment of $1,661.78 plus interest and costs issued by the Circuit
Court (Chabot, J.), following an evidentiary hearing, in favor of the plaintiffs,
Jacqueline Kagiliery and Karissa Kagiliery. We affirm.
In ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, the trial court found, among other
things, that (1) the plaintiffs entered into a one-year residential lease with the
defendant commencing July 1, 2021; (2) the plaintiffs paid the defendant
$2,700, consisting of $1,350 for the July rent plus a security deposit of $1,350;
(3) while they were moving into the apartment, the plaintiffs discovered what
they believed was a live bed bug, notified the defendant of their discovery, and
delayed their occupancy; (4) the defendant promptly took action to address the
matter, including identifying an apartment above the plaintiffs’ apartment as
the source of the problem, and eventually remediating the issue under the
supervision of the City of Manchester; (5) the defendant failed to provide the
plaintiffs with documentation that a professional exterminator had performed
the remediation work; (6) the defendant offered to refund the plaintiffs one
week of their July 2021 rent, and on July 20, 2021, offered to let them out of
the lease altogether; (7) the plaintiffs accepted the defendant’s offer to
terminate the lease on July 30, 2021; (8) the City of Manchester did not deem
the bedbug issue to be finally resolved until December 2021; and (9) the
defendant refused to return the security deposit, claiming that the plaintiffs
provided insufficient notice to allow it to re-let the apartment by August 1,
2021. On these facts, the trial court awarded the plaintiffs judgment of
$1,661.78, consisting of their security deposit, see RSA 540-A:7, I (2021), plus
one week’s rent. On appeal, the defendant argues that the trial court erred by
allowing certain exhibits into evidence, crediting the plaintiffs’ evidence and
testimony that their apartment had a bedbug issue, and not enforcing the
terms of the lease by requiring the defendant to refund the security deposit.
We will uphold the trial court’s findings unless they are unsupported by
the evidence or erroneous as a matter of law. Lane v. Barletta, 172 N.H. 674,
676 (2019). Our task is to determine whether the evidence reasonably
supports the trial court’s findings, and whether its decision is consistent with
applicable law. Id. at 677. We defer to the trial court’s judgment on matters
such as resolving conflicts in testimony, evaluating the credibility of witnesses,
and determining the weight of the evidence presented. Town of Atkinson v.
Malborn Realty Trust, 164 N.H. 62, 66-67 (2012). The trial court may accept
or reject, in whole or in part, the testimony of any witness or party, and is not
required to believe even uncontested evidence. Id. at 67.
It is the burden of the appealing party, in this case the defendant, to
present a record that is sufficient to address the issues raised on appeal, and
to demonstrate that the appealing party raised those issues in the trial court.
Bean v. Red Oak Prop. Mgmt., 151 N.H. 248, 250 (2004). Absent a transcript,
we assume that the evidence was sufficient to support the result reached by
the trial court, and we review its decision for errors of law only. See id.;
Atwood v. Owens, 142 N.H. 396, 396-97 (1997).
In this case, the defendant has not provided a trial transcript. Nor has it
provided relevant exhibits referred to by the trial court, including a copy of the
relevant lease. Under these circumstances, we assume that the evidence
supports the trial court’s findings of fact, and, discerning no error of law on the
face of the trial court’s narrative order, we uphold its decision.
Affirmed.
MacDonald, C.J., and Hicks, Bassett, Hantz Marconi, and Donovan, JJ.,
concurred.
Timothy A. Gudas,
Clerk
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