Curto v. Erie County

Appeal from an order (denominated decision) of the Erie County Court (David W. Foley, A.J.), dated March 28, 2016. The order affirmed an amended judgment of Buffalo City Court.

It is hereby ordered that the order so appealed from is unanimously affirmed without costs.

Memorandum: Plaintiff commenced this small claims action in Buffalo City Court seeking damages in the amount of $300. In an amended judgment, City Court awarded damages in that amount, together with disbursements of $15. On appeal from the order affirming the amended judgment, plaintiff contends that County Court erred in failing to award her additional disbursements. We reject that contention.

“Appellate review of small claims is limited to determining whether ‘substantial justice has not been done between the parties according to the rules and principles of substantive law’ ” (Rowe v Silver & Gold Expressions, 107 AD3d 1090, 1091 [2013], quoting UCCA 1807). “Thus, judgment rendered in a small claims action will be overturned only if it is ‘so shocking as to not be substantial justice’ ” (Coppola v Kandey Co., 236 AD2d 871, 872 [1997]). The determination to award $15 in disbursements meets the standard of substantial justice. Moreover, the only item of expense sought by plaintiff that qualified as an allowable disbursement under UCCA 1908 was the filing fee (see UCCA 1908 [a]), which was $15 (see UCCA 1803 [a]) and not $90, as plaintiff contends. We have examined plaintiff’s remaining contentions and conclude that they are without merit.