Appeal from a judgment of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Richmond County (Orlando Marrazzo, Jr., J.), entered March 5, 2010. The judgment, after a nonjury trial, awarded plaintiff the principal sum of $5,000.

ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed, without costs.

Plaintiff brought this small claims action to recover the sum of $5,000, which she had allegedly loaned to defendant on July 3, 2009. At the nonjury trial, plaintiff testified that she had made the loan. Defendant denied plaintiff's claim. Following the trial, the Civil Court awarded plaintiff the principal sum of $5,000 based entirely on its findings as to the relative credibility of the witnesses. "On a bench trial, 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, especially when the findings of fact rest in large measure on considerations relating to the credibility of witnesses" (Claridge
Gardens v Menotti, 160 AD2d 544, 544-545 [1990]; see also Vizzari v State of New York, 184 AD2d 564 [1992]; Kincade v Kincade, 178 AD2d 510 [1991]). This standard applies with greater force to judgments rendered in the Small Claims Part of the court, given the limited standard of review (Williams v Roper, 269 AD2d 125, 126 [2000]).

Since there was testimony which supported the Civil Court's determination, we conclude that the judgment provided the parties with substantial justice according to the rules and principles of substantive law (CCA 1807; see also Ross v Friedman, 269 AD2d 584 [2000]).

Accordingly, the judgment is affirmed.

We note that we do not consider those materials annexed to defendant's brief which are dehors the record (see Chimarios v Duhl, 152 AD2d 508 [2003]).

Steinhardt, J.P., Golia and Rios, JJ., concur.
Decision Date: July 05, 2011