Defendant appealed a trial magistrate’s decision denying a motion to vacate a default judgment. Defendant failed to appear for the matter’s scheduled hearing, which resulted in a default judgment. Then, ten months later, Defendant filed a motion to vacate the judgement. In support of the motion, defendant asserted that he failed to appear because he had to go to work, but the trial magistrate denied the motion.

On appeal, Defendant argued that the trial magistrate erred in denying the motion to vacate because the actual reason that Defendant failed to appear was because he never received the summons due to an address change and, therefore, he was unaware that he was supposed to appear in court. But the Panel is “confined to a reading of the record.” See Link v. State, 633 A.2d 1345, 1348 (R.I. 1993). Thus, the Panel did not and could not consider Defendant’s argument regarding failing to receive the summons due to an address change. As such, the Appeals Panel held that the trial magistrate did not err in denying the motion to vacate. Accordingly, the Appeals Panel affirmed the trial magistrate’s decision.