SINCLAIR v. MICHIKO OKOCHI (2020)

ORDERED that, on the court's own motion, the appeals are consolidated for purposes of disposition; and it is further,

ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed, without costs.

In this small claims action, plaintiff seeks to recover the principal sum of $1,025, for attorney's fees that he had incurred to have a deed prepared and filed. At a nonjury trial, it was established that, in the Supreme Court, Kings County, the parties to this action had litigated a dispute over the boundary line between the adjacent properties they owned. In 2010, the Supreme Court action was resolved in favor of defendants herein, who were ordered by a Supreme Court referee "to prepare and file a new deed." However, plaintiff testified that, in 2015, he had been unable to refinance his property due to defects in the deed or deeds that defendants' attorney had prepared and filed respecting plaintiff's property. Plaintiff therefore retained an attorney, to whom he paid $1,025, to rectify the problem by preparing, filing and recording a new deed.

Defendant Kenichi Okochi contended that he had complied with the referee's order, because he had retained attorneys who had filed a corrective deed, but he did not refute plaintiff's contention that, in 2015, in order to be able to refinance his property, plaintiff had been required to hire counsel to rectify the problems that defendants' attorneys had created. Following the trial, the Civil Court awarded judgment in favor of plaintiff against defendants jointly in the principal sum of $1,025.

In a small claims action, our review is limited to a determination of whether "substantial justice has ․ been done between the parties according to the rules and principles of substantive law" (CCA 1807; see CCA 1804; Ross v. Friedman, 269 AD2d 584 [2004]; Williams v. Roper, 269 AD2d 125, 126 [2000]). "[A] small claims judgment may not be overturned simply because the determination appealed from involves an arguable point on which an appellate court may differ; the deviation from substantive law must be readily apparent and the court's determination clearly erroneous" (Forte v. Bielecki, 118 AD2d 620, 621 [1986]; see also Tranquility Salon & Day Spa, Inc. v. Caira, 141 AD3d 711, 712 [2016]).

Here, defendants' attorney did undertake to file the deeds necessary to grant good title to the parties. However, the papers filed by defendants' attorney were inadequate to do so; plaintiff was therefore entitled to be recompensed for the sum he had spent to have an attorney prepare, file and have recorded a deed on his behalf. We therefore conclude that the judgment rendered substantial justice between the parties according to the rules and principles of substantive law (see CCA 1804, 1807).

Accordingly, the judgment is affirmed.

ALIOTTA, P.J., ELLIOT and TOUSSAINT, JJ., concur.