District Court awards tenant $1,350 over disputed repair and extra rent deductions

The District Court, presided over by Judge Jamison Acklarn, on October 4, 2026, ordered Calvin Mercer to return $1,350 in disputed security-deposit deductions to Erin Whitcomb, together with any allowable filing costs to which she is entitled. Whitcomb had sought that amount less any reasonable wall-patching cost established at the hearing, as well as allowable filing costs.

The court found in Whitcomb’s favor on both the $400 charge for four additional days of rent and the $950 charge for living-room wall repairs and painting. It concluded that Mercer had not sufficiently established that withholding the disputed amount was lawful.

• Whitcomb is to recover $1,350 from Mercer, together with any allowable filing costs to which she is entitled.
• Mercer shall have no further claim against Whitcomb arising from the four-day rent charge or the disputed living-room repair deduction.

On the rent deduction, the court found that Whitcomb vacated the premises on April 30 and that Mercer retained his own key. Mercer identified no evidence that she continued to occupy, use or control the premises after that date.

The lease did not expressly provide that rent would continue solely because a key remained outstanding. Mercer also acknowledged permitting a later key return without telling Whitcomb that additional rent would accrue. Those circumstances did not establish that the $400 represented unpaid rent.

The repair dispute required the court to distinguish the admitted shelf-anchor holes from the broader painting work. Whitcomb acknowledged leaving several holes without repairing them, but the contractor’s invoice grouped patching, surface preparation and repainting into a single $950 charge.

Mercer could not establish the portion attributable to the holes. The court also noted that repainting the entire living room was his decision, not a contractor’s recommendation or assessment, and that he could not establish a material difference between the paint mismatch in his May 1 photographs and the preexisting condition documented in Whitcomb’s dated move-in photograph.

The court therefore found that Mercer had not established the reasonableness and proper amount of the repair deduction attributable to Whitcomb’s conduct.

Whitcomb said she left the rental clean when her lease ended, apart from the shelf-anchor holes. She maintained that the broad paint mismatch was already present and relied on an original phone photograph with date metadata.

She acknowledged the photograph’s limits: different lighting and a chair obscuring part of the lower wall prevented an exact comparison. She did not recall sending the photograph to Mercer or documenting the mismatch to him at move-in.

Mercer argued that the anchor holes and conspicuous paint mismatch justified repainting because a smaller repair would leave an obvious patch. He acknowledged, however, that he had no separate contractor assessment supporting whole-room repainting and no itemized division of the $950 charge.

On rent, Mercer said he regarded return of all keys as part of surrendering the premises. Although he intended the delayed drop-off as a convenience rather than free additional days, he acknowledged that he had not communicated a continuing rent obligation and could identify no use or control of the property after April 30.

Whitcomb’s lease ended on April 30, and her receipt placed the spare-key return on May 4. She said Mercer allowed the later return because she worked evening shifts.

According to Whitcomb’s testimony, the May 16 deposit accounting listed $950 for wall patching and painting and $400 for May 1 through May 4 rent. She received $450 back from her $1,800 deposit and disputed the remaining deduction.

The judgment resolves both disputed charges without assigning a separate value to patching the admitted holes. Its outcome rests on the evidence supporting these deductions; it does not hold that the holes required no repair or that delayed key return can never affect a rent obligation.