Background
LandingPartners LLC sued Shiva, LLC, Jay Patel, Airport Hospitality, LLC, and Centreville Bank in Kent County Superior Court in January 2023, alleging breach of a purchase and sale agreement for commercial real property at 1850 Post Road in Warwick, Rhode Island. After Patel and the entities he controlled failed to respond, default judgment entered against them in July 2023. The judgment included an order for specific performance and the appointment of a commissioner—Richard Gemma, Esq.—to effectuate the closing. The case was later resolved by consent order and dismissed with prejudice as to Centreville Bank in October 2023.
Nearly nine months after default judgment entered, Patel filed a motion to vacate under Superior Court Rule 60, claiming he was never served. The motion was denied. Patel then propounded discovery, including a subpoena to depose Commissioner Gemma. LandingPartners moved to quash the subpoena and sought a protective order; Centreville joined the motion to quash. At a hearing on April 3, 2025, the hearing justice granted both motions, finding discovery closed. Patel appealed but deliberately chose not to order the transcript of the April 3 hearing, stating the appeal was “based on questions of law and structural errors * * * evident in the existing court file” and that a “transcript of the lower court’s biased proceedings is not a prerequisite” for Supreme Court review.
The Court’s Holding
The Rhode Island Supreme Court denied and dismissed the appeal in a unanimous order. Under Article I, Rule 10(b)(1) of the Supreme Court Rules of Appellate Procedure, an appellant must order from the reporter “a transcript of such parts of the proceedings not already on file as the appellant deems necessary” within twenty days of filing the notice of appeal. The Court reiterated its established rule that it “cannot perform a meaningful review” and must uphold the trial justice’s findings when an appellant fails to provide a sufficient transcript.
The Court acknowledged a narrow exception recognized in 731 Airport Associates, LP v. H & M Realty Associates, LLC, 799 A.2d 279 (R.I. 2002): an appeal may proceed without a transcript where “the appeal is limited to a challenge to rulings of law that appear sufficiently on the record and the party accepts the findings of the trial justice as correct.” Patel’s argument fell within the contours of that exception, but the Court found the record itself wholly insufficient to permit review. The only document reflecting what had occurred at the April 3 hearing was a one-page order stating, “for reasons stated on the record,” that the subpoena was quashed and discovery was closed. Without the transcript, the Court had no way to evaluate whether the hearing justice abused her discretion. The appeal was therefore dismissed. The Court also reminded Patel that pro se status does not excuse compliance with procedural rules—self-represented litigants are “expected to familiarize himself or herself with the law as well as the rules of procedure.”
Key Takeaways
- Rhode Island Supreme Court Rule 10(b)(1) requires appellants to order the hearing transcript within twenty days of filing a notice of appeal; failure to do so is fatal to an appeal where meaningful review requires examination of what occurred below.
- The narrow exception permitting an appeal to proceed without a transcript applies only when the challenge is strictly limited to legal questions that “appear sufficiently on the record” and the appellant accepts the trial court’s factual findings; a one-page order stating “for reasons stated on the record” does not satisfy the record requirement.
- A pro se appellant’s deliberate decision not to order the transcript—based on a belief that a transcript is unnecessary—is treated with the same consequence as any other failure to comply; pro se status does not relax procedural obligations.
- Post-default-judgment discovery is closely guarded; a default judgment defendant who failed to appear cannot easily reopen discovery through a Rule 60 motion, and subsequent discovery subpoenas face scrutiny as potential harassment of parties that have already resolved the case.
Why It Matters
LandingPartners v. Shiva provides a useful reminder for Rhode Island appellate practitioners about the transcript requirement and the narrow exception to it. The holding clarifies that the 731 Airport Associates exception—allowing appeals to proceed on pure legal questions without a transcript—requires not only that the appeal raise only legal questions but also that the record independently contain a sufficient basis for review. A bottom-line order that says only “for reasons stated on the record” does not meet that standard; the reasoning itself must appear in writing somewhere in the record for the exception to apply. Practitioners who contemplate appealing discovery orders or other interlocutory rulings in cases where the relevant hearing was not transcribed should order the transcript before the twenty-day window closes, even if they believe their arguments are purely legal. The cost of a transcript is modest compared to a dismissed appeal. For creditors and plaintiffs who secure default judgments, the decision also suggests that courts will protect parties who have already closed a case from being subjected to broad post-judgment discovery by defaulted defendants who delayed challenging the judgment for nearly a year.