SOLOMON E. GRESEN, ESQ.

(SBN 164783)
1 RGLAWYERS, LLP
2 16200 Ventura Blvd., Suite 407A
Encino CA 91436
3 Tel: (818) 815-2737
Fax: (818) 815-2737
4 seg@rglawyers.com
5 JASON M. INGBER, ESQ. (SBN 318323)
6 Law Offices of Jason M. Ingber
3580 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1260
7 Los Angeles, CA 90010
Tel: (310) 270-0089
8 jasonmingber@gmail.com
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10 Attorneys for Plaintiff, Andrea Love

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
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CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
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ANDREA LOVE, an individual, Case No.: 2:23-cv-3122
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Plaintiff,
16 PLAINTIFF’S REPLY BRIEF IN
vs. SUPPORT OF HER MOTION TO
17 REMAND REMOVED ACTION
18 ELLEN STONE, an individual; and DOES 1
through 25, inclusive
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Defendants.
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PLAINTIFF’S REPLY BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF HER MOTION TO REMAND REMOVED ACTION
 1 MEMORANDUM OF POINTS AND AUTHORITIES

2 I. INTRODUCTION

3 Defendant Ellen Stone (“Defendant”) leverages her extreme wealth to push frivolous

4 arguments.

5  Nothing in Plaintiff Andrea Love’s (“Plaintiff”) complaint provides a basis to have

6 removed this case to federal court.

7  Defendant does not refute any evidence brought by Plaintiff, especially the

8 testimony that Defendant moved to Los Angeles in 2016 to be with her daughters.

9 o Defendant could have proffered a declaration from herself or her family to

10 rebut the evidence in Plaintiff’s motion to remand, but she does not.

11 Defendant is silent in response to Plaintiff’s Motion for Remand.

12 o Defendant exclusively proffers baseless evidentiary objections and

13 declarations from two paid employees: 1) her Certified Public Accountant,

14 to testify that Defendant avoids her obligation to pay taxes to the great State

15 of California1; and 2) her defense attorney to testify as to documents that

16 show that Defendant owns many vehicles that have registrations to

17 Defendant’s property in Illinois.

18 Defendant’s arguments in the face of the record before this Court are sanctionable as a

19 matter of law. Accordingly, Plaintiff requests that this Court grant her Motion for Remand and

20 sanction Defendant.

21 ///

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Defendant does not refute that she lives in Los Angeles since 2016 (through the hearing
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date to this motion for remand) which obligates her to pay taxes to California. See State of
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California Franchise Tax Board (Last updated: 03/06/2023)
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https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/personal/residency-status/part-year-and-nonresident.html (outlining that
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someone that lives part time during the tax year in California must pay taxes.)
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PLAINTIFF’S REPLY BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF HER MOTION TO REMAND REMOVED ACTION
 1 II. DEFENDANT’S CASE LAW CALLS FOR SANCTIONS AGAINST DEFENDANT

2 The cases cited by Defendant are random buzz words.

3 There is not a single case in Defendant’s Opposition helpful to Defendant.

4 For example, Defendant relies on Craig v. Maxx Orthopedics, Inc., No. 15-CV-294, 2016

5 WL 7480387, at *1 (E.D. Wis. Dec. 29, 2016) for the quote “It is well-settled that “for diversity

6 purposes it is citizenship, not residence, that matters.”

7 There are no factual or procedural superficial similarities in Craig to this case that’s worth a

8 mention. In Craig, the opinion revolves around a motion for judgment on the pleadings that was

9 filed by a defendant. The Craig court declined to rule on that motion for judgment on the

10 pleadings, as the plaintiffs had filed an amended complaint with additional corporate defendants in

11 their amended complaint (which was filed while the motion for judgment on the pleadings

12 languished on the Craig court’s docket due to a presiding judge having a health issue) and the

13 plaintiffs in Craig failed to allege the citizenship of the newly added corporate defendants in their

14 amended complaint.

15 Here, Plaintiff has alleged the citizenship and residence of the parties in her complaint. See

16 Docket 1-2 at ¶1. The Craig court held, as do many other courts 2, that it was proper to take the

17 conclusory allegations in the complaint regarding citizenship as true for the purposes of

18 determining diversity jurisdiction. Consequently, the Craig ruling supports Plaintiff’s Motion for

19 Remand, and Plaintiff’s contention that Defendant had zero basis to remove this case.

20 Similarly, the 1905 Supreme Court case cited by the Craig court, and Defendant’s brief

21 holds, “that a mere averment of residence in a particular State is not an averment of citizenship in

22 that State for the purposes of jurisdiction.” Steigleder v. McQuesten, 198 U.S. 141, 143, 25 S. Ct.

23 616, 617. As mentioned above, Plaintiff avers both residence and citizenship, which destroys

24 diversity. See Docket 1-2 at ¶1.

25 Defendant relies on Strabala v. Zhang, 318 F.R.D. 81, 98, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160036,

26 *42, 96 Fed. R. Serv. 3d (Callaghan) 287, 2016 WL 6822664, which has no connection to this case.

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28 2
See e.g. Lowdermilk v. U. S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n, 479 F.3d 994, 998-999 (9th Cir. 2007)

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PLAINTIFF’S REPLY BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF HER MOTION TO REMAND REMOVED ACTION
 1 In Strabala an American plaintiff sued two Chinese businessmen based on claims that they

2 embezzled money from him, and that they had defamed him to people in the United States. The

3 plaintiff in Strabala was at risk of never being able to litigate his claims unless the Strabala court

4 could find some basis amidst the extensive briefing and jurisdictional discovery ordered. Here,

5 there’s no risk that the parties will lose the opportunity to litigate this case if this Court finds that

6 Defendant may not proceed in this Court.

7 There is one factual and procedural element in Strabala highly analogous to this case. The

8 Strabala court had held that it is sanctionable to take the position that domicile is to be assessed at

9 the time of the filing of a case. See Strabala v. Zhang, 318 F.R.D. 81, 98, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS

10 160036, *42, 96 Fed. R. Serv. 3d (Callaghan) 287, 2016 WL 6822664 (“Strabala’s position to the

11 contrary was frivolous. See, e.g., Perry v. Pogemiller, 16 F.3d 138, 140 (7th Cir. 1993)

12 (‘[Defendant’s] hyper-technical interpretation of assessing domicile [in which he argued that the

13 inquiry is restricted to information about that party's activities on the date suit is filed] is totally

14 lacking in support and in substance. . . . Therefore, we conclude that sanctions are appropriate[.]’”).

15 Here, Defendant hangs her hat on this exact argument throughout her Opposition. See

16 Pages 11 through 14 of Docket entry 42, wherein Defendant devotes a three page section to this

17 frivolous argument. This is sanctionable as a matter of law, the law that Defendant cites in her own

18 Opposition.

19 Consequently, this case should be remanded, and Defendant ought to be sanctioned for

20 repeatedly pushing her frivolous positions.

21 III. DEFENDANT DOES NOT PROVIDE ANY AFFIRMATIVE EVIDENCE TO

22 REFUTE PLAINTIFF’S EVIDENCE

23 Defendant raises nonexistent legal standards in her Opposition.

24 For example, Defendant argues: “none of the ‘evidence’ in the form of Exhibits or

25 arguments in Plaintiff’s declaration establish Defendant is domiciled in California.” Id. at page 11.

26 Plaintiff does not need to establish Defendant’s domicile. The burden to establish domicile is on

27 Defendant who removed this case. Defendant does not do so.

28 Defendant’s brief mentions that she has family in Illinois. Which family? Defendant’s

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PLAINTIFF’S REPLY BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF HER MOTION TO REMAND REMOVED ACTION
 1 daughters whom Plaintiff testifies live in Los Angeles and made Defendant move to Los Angeles?

2 We will not know because Defendant did not provide a declaration with a shred of evidence in her

3 Opposition.

4 Defendant ineffectually throws objections at Plaintiff’s evidence to see what might stick.

5 Nothing does. Plaintiff will not address the evidentiary objections to each piece of evidence in

6 depth, and rather focuses only on Exhibit A, the holographic note wherein Defendant states that she

7 moved to Los Angeles to be close to her daughters and to join a community/association in Los

8 Angeles.

9 The Holographic note is an admission by Defendant and is exempt from hearsay under

10 Federal Rules of Evidence Rule 801(d)(2). It is also exempt from hearsay as this note was part of

11 Plaintiff’s job, i.e., kept in the regular course of business. Federal Rules of Evidence 803(6).

12 Defendant does not refute the legitimacy of the journal or its contents and instead rests on

13 objections. Defendant does not have any answer for Plaintiff’s testimony and instead repeats

14 references found in her Notice of Removal.

15 The remaining exhibits submitted by Plaintiff offer support for Plaintiff’s now unrefuted

16 position that Defendant moved to Los Angeles and has lived here in Los Angeles continuously

17 with the intent to stay. Defendant offers no specific new evidence that comes close to conclusively

18 meeting her standard.

19 Defendant’s breathless fidelity to procedural nonsense as opposed to argument with

20 evidence relevant to the governing legal standard is sanctionable as found in Strabala.

21 IV. THIS COURT HAS REMANDED A CASE WITH SIMILAR FACTS

22 In Holm v. Evans, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 92331, *4 this Court held that “there is no basis

23 for diversity of citizenship jurisdiction because Plaintiff and Defendant reside in Riverside,

24 California, and thus are both citizens of California.” Here as alleged in the complaint and tacitly

25 admitted by Defendant in her Opposition, Defendant and Plaintiff both reside in Los Angeles,

26 California. Therefore, this case should be remanded as this Court ruled in Holm.

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PLAINTIFF’S REPLY BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF HER MOTION TO REMAND REMOVED ACTION
 1 V. CONCLUSION

2 Defendant had her day in federal court and has proved we did not belong here in the first

3 place. Defendant should be sanctioned for advancing this litigation in federal court this far and

4 Plaintiff’s Motion for Remand should be granted.

6 I also certify that this brief was served on Defendant via counsel’s electronic link sent

7 through the ecf system.

9 Dated: July 24, 2023 Respectfully submitted,

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LAW OFFICES JASON M. INGBER
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By: /s/ Jason M. Ingber
12 JASON M. INGBER, ESQ.
Attorney for Plaintiff
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