Appeals from (1) a judgment of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Queens County (Diccia T. Pineda-Kirwan, J.), entered February 5, 2007, and (2) an order of the same court dated June 13, 2007. The judgment, after a nonjury trial, awarded plaintiff the principal sum of $2,500 and dismissed defendant's counterclaim. The order denied defendant's motion to extend his time to file a CPLR 4404 motion and/or to set aside the judgment pursuant to CPLR 5015 (a).

Judgment and order affirmed without costs.

Plaintiff commenced this small claims action to recover unpaid commissions for two accounts which she claimed to have referred to defendant. Defendant
counterclaimed for legal fees. After a nonjury trial, the Civil Court found that plaintiff had established her case and that defendant had failed to establish his counterclaim. Accordingly, judgment was entered awarding plaintiff the principal sum of $2,500 and dismissing defendant's counterclaim. Thereafter, defendant moved to extend his time to file a CPLR 4404 motion and/or to set aside the judgment pursuant to CPLR 5015 (a), arguing, in essence, that he had newly discovered evidence, that plaintiff had made misrepresentations to the court, and that the agreement between the parties was void based upon the statute of frauds. The court denied the motion.

The decision of a fact-finding court should not be disturbed upon appeal unless it is obvious that the court's conclusions could not have been 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]). Furthermore, the determination of the trier of fact as to issues of credibility is given substantial deference as the court has the opportunity to observe and evaluate the testimony and demeanor of the witnesses, thereby affording the trial court a better [*2]perspective from which to evaluate the credibility of the witnesses (see Vizzari v State of New York, 184 AD2d 564 [1992]; Kincade v Kincade, 178 AD2d 510, 511 [1991]).

In its decision after trial, the Civil Court explicitly stated that it credited plaintiff's testimony, but not defendant's. The Civil Court also implicitly found that plaintiff had established that there was an agreement between plaintiff and defendant, acting in his individual capacity, and that defendant had breached that agreement. That finding is supported by the record and will not be disturbed on appeal.

The Civil Court properly denied defendant's posttrial motion, as defendant failed to establish that he had discovered any evidence that he could not have discovered prior to trial or prior to the time for making a timely CPLR 4404 motion (CPLR 5015 [a] [2]), or that plaintiff had made any misrepresentations (CPLR 5015 [a] [3]). We note that defendant also failed to establish that the agreement was void pursuant to the statute of frauds (see e.g. Taranto v Fritz, 83 AD2d 864 [1981]; 61 NY Jur 2d, Statute of Frauds § 39).

Accordingly, the Civil Court's judgment and order provided the parties with substantial justice according to the rules and principles of substantive law (CCA 1807; see Ross v Friedman, 269 AD2d 584 [2000]; Williams, 269 AD2d at 126), and we affirm.

Pesce, P.J., Golia and Steinhardt, JJ., concur.