Appeal from a judgment of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Kings County (Noach Dear, J.), entered January 24, 2012. The judgment, after a nonjury trial, awarded plaintiff the principal sum of $5,000.

ORDERED that the judgment is reversed, without costs, and the action is dismissed.

In this small claims action to recover a $5,000 retainer deposit that plaintiff paid to defendant, an attorney who had represented plaintiff in an estate matter, plaintiff claims that the amount paid had not been earned. At a nonjury trial, plaintiff, who claimed that her command of English was limited, and her daughter testified that defendant had not performed the legal work that she had been retained to do and, as a result, plaintiff had discharged her. In support of her claim, plaintiff submitted to the Civil Court a copy of the retainer agreement; a receipt for $5,000, representing the initial retainer deposit; and an affidavit from a person who had allegedly found plaintiff's legal file on the subway. Defendant denied that she had failed to perform the work contracted for, and submitted into evidence her time sheet as well as two trusts which she had drafted, which, plaintiff and her daughter testified, they had never seen. Defendant further testified that she had not lost plaintiff's legal file, and proffered a document signed by plaintiff acknowledging plaintiff's receipt of the legal file from defendant's office prior to the time the legal file was allegedly found on the subway. In rebuttal, plaintiff testified that she had been tricked by defendant into signing a document which she did not understand. Following the trial, the Civil Court awarded judgment in favor of plaintiff in the principal sum of $5,000.

While the determination of a trial court as to issues of credibility is to be afforded substantial deference (see Vizzari v State of New York, 184 AD2d 564 [1992]; Kincade v Kincade, 178 AD2d 510, 511 [1991]), in the instant case, the documentary evidence submitted by defendant belies plaintiff's claim that defendant had not performed the legal work contracted for. Moreover, although plaintiff claims that she was tricked into signing the "sign-out paper," which stated, in English, that she was taking her legal file from defendant, a person's inability to understand the English language is insufficient to avoid the general rule that a party who executes a document is presumed to know its contents and to have assented to them (see Holcomb v TWR Express, Inc., 11 AD3d 513 [2004]). [*2]

In view of the foregoing, we conclude that the judgment in favor of plaintiff failed to render substantial justice between the parties in accordance with the rules and principles of substantive law (CCA 1804, 1807). Accordingly, the judgment is reversed and the action is dismissed.

Solomon, J.P., Pesce and Aliotta, JJ., concur.
Decision Date: October 08, 2013