Appeal from a judgment of the District Court of Suffolk County, Sixth District (Gigi A. Spelman, J.), entered September 7, 2007. The judgment, after a nonjury trial, awarded plaintiff the principal sum of $5,000.

Judgment affirmed without costs.

Plaintiff brought this small claims action against defendant, his co-tenant, seeking $5,000 in unpaid rent. After a nonjury trial, the District Court found that plaintiff had established that the parties, who had co-signed a one-year lease, had an agreement to each pay half of the rent, that defendant had left without authorization in the middle of the lease term and stopped paying rent, and that plaintiff had paid defendant's share for the remainder of the lease term. Accordingly, the court found that plaintiff was entitled to recoup the payments he made on defendant's behalf.

The decision of the fact-finding court should not be disturbed upon appeal unless it is obvious that the court's conclusions could not be reached under any fair interpretation of the evidence (see Claridge Gardens v Menotti, 160 AD2d 544 [1990]). This standard applies with greater force to judgments rendered in the Small Claims Part of the court (see Williams v Roper, 269 AD2d 125, 126 [2000]). The court's findings in this case are amply supported by the record and, therefore, the judgment provided the parties with substantial justice according to the rules and principles of substantive law (UDCA 1804, 1807; see Ross v Friedman, 269 AD2d 584 [2000]; Williams, 269 AD2d at 126).

Accordingly, the judgment is affirmed.

Tanenbaum, J.P., Molia and LaCava, JJ., concur. [*2]
Decision Date: March 16, 2009