THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

SUPREME COURT

In Case No. 2023-0253, Karissa Kagiliery & a. v. 274 

Amherst Street LLC, the court on October 11, 2023, issued the 

following order:

The court has reviewed the written arguments and the record submitted 

on appeal, and has determined to resolve the case by way of this order. See

Sup. Ct. R. 20(2). The defendant, 274 Amherst Street LLC, appeals a small 

claim judgment of $1,661.78 plus interest and costs issued by the Circuit 

Court (Chabot, J.), following an evidentiary hearing, in favor of the plaintiffs, 

Jacqueline Kagiliery and Karissa Kagiliery. We affirm.

In ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, the trial court found, among other 

things, that (1) the plaintiffs entered into a one-year residential lease with the 

defendant commencing July 1, 2021; (2) the plaintiffs paid the defendant 

$2,700, consisting of $1,350 for the July rent plus a security deposit of $1,350; 

(3) while they were moving into the apartment, the plaintiffs discovered what 

they believed was a live bed bug, notified the defendant of their discovery, and 

delayed their occupancy; (4) the defendant promptly took action to address the 

matter, including identifying an apartment above the plaintiffs’ apartment as 

the source of the problem, and eventually remediating the issue under the 

supervision of the City of Manchester; (5) the defendant failed to provide the 

plaintiffs with documentation that a professional exterminator had performed 

the remediation work; (6) the defendant offered to refund the plaintiffs one 

week of their July 2021 rent, and on July 20, 2021, offered to let them out of 

the lease altogether; (7) the plaintiffs accepted the defendant’s offer to 

terminate the lease on July 30, 2021; (8) the City of Manchester did not deem 

the bedbug issue to be finally resolved until December 2021; and (9) the 

defendant refused to return the security deposit, claiming that the plaintiffs 

provided insufficient notice to allow it to re-let the apartment by August 1, 

2021. On these facts, the trial court awarded the plaintiffs judgment of 

$1,661.78, consisting of their security deposit, see RSA 540-A:7, I (2021), plus 

one week’s rent. On appeal, the defendant argues that the trial court erred by 

allowing certain exhibits into evidence, crediting the plaintiffs’ evidence and 

testimony that their apartment had a bedbug issue, and not enforcing the 

terms of the lease by requiring the defendant to refund the security deposit.

We will uphold the trial court’s findings unless they are unsupported by 

the evidence or erroneous as a matter of law. Lane v. Barletta, 172 N.H. 674, 

676 (2019). Our task is to determine whether the evidence reasonably 

supports the trial court’s findings, and whether its decision is consistent with 
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applicable law. Id. at 677. We defer to the trial court’s judgment on matters 

such as resolving conflicts in testimony, evaluating the credibility of witnesses, 

and determining the weight of the evidence presented. Town of Atkinson v. 

Malborn Realty Trust, 164 N.H. 62, 66-67 (2012). The trial court may accept 

or reject, in whole or in part, the testimony of any witness or party, and is not 

required to believe even uncontested evidence. Id. at 67.

It is the burden of the appealing party, in this case the defendant, to 

present a record that is sufficient to address the issues raised on appeal, and 

to demonstrate that the appealing party raised those issues in the trial court. 

Bean v. Red Oak Prop. Mgmt., 151 N.H. 248, 250 (2004). Absent a transcript, 

we assume that the evidence was sufficient to support the result reached by 

the trial court, and we review its decision for errors of law only. See id.; 

Atwood v. Owens, 142 N.H. 396, 396-97 (1997).

In this case, the defendant has not provided a trial transcript. Nor has it 

provided relevant exhibits referred to by the trial court, including a copy of the 

relevant lease. Under these circumstances, we assume that the evidence 

supports the trial court’s findings of fact, and, discerning no error of law on the 

face of the trial court’s narrative order, we uphold its decision.

Affirmed.

MacDonald, C.J., and Hicks, Bassett, Hantz Marconi, and Donovan, JJ., 

concurred.

Timothy A. Gudas,

 Clerk