Filed 8/31/26 Romero v. Jones CA4/3
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for
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or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION THREE
MARSHELL ROMERO,
Plaintiff and Appellant, G065501
v. (Super. Ct. No. 30-2024-
01408424)
GERALDINE JONES,
OPINION
Defendant and Respondent.
Appeal from an order of the Superior Court of Orange County,
Sheila Recio, Judge. Affirmed.
Marshell Romero, in pro. per., for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Poliquin & DeGrave, Douglas M. DeGrave and Donald B. Wallace
for Defendant and Respondent.
Plaintiff Marshell Romero appeals from an order granting
defendant Geraldine Jones’s motion to quash service of summons for lack of
personal jurisdiction. We affirm. Romero did not establish through admissible
evidence that Jones has sufficient minimum contacts with California to
create personal jurisdiction.
FACTS
According to her complaint, Romero dated Jones’s son, Jamal
Abdul Brown, for several months in 2022. One morning in September 2022,
Brown allegedly attacked Romero while they were driving. Bleeding
profusely, Romero pleaded with Brown to take her to the hospital. Instead,
Brown allegedly called Jones, who begged Romero not to call the police or
report her son.
Brown was arrested and criminally charged with felony corporal
injury and related crimes. Meanwhile, Romero filed a civil complaint against
both Brown and Jones, asserting various intentional tort claims.
Jones filed a motion to quash service of summons for lack of
personal jurisdiction, asserting she was born in Alabama, has lived in
Georgia since 1996, and has almost no contacts with California. In her
supporting declaration, Jones explained she has visited California only
twice—once in the early 1970’s to visit a friend, and again for three or four
days in May 2022 to attend Brown’s college graduation. She further attested
that she has never lived, worked, banked, or owned any real property or a
business in California; she was in Georgia during the September 2022
incident; and it was Brown, not Jones, who initiated the telephone call during
that incident.
Romero opposed the motion, asserting Jones has sufficient
contacts with California because she paid for Brown’s bail bond following his
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2022 arrest and because she operates a moving company in California. In
support, Romero submitted documents she had subpoenaed from a bail bond
company, although she did not include a declaration authenticating those
records. Her opposition offered no evidence to support her argument about
the moving company.
Before the hearing, the trial court issued a tentative ruling
granting Jones’s motion on the grounds that Romero had presented no
admissible evidence to establish Jones’s alleged ties to California. The
tentative also noted the court intended to strike the bail bond records, as they
contained confidential information such as social security numbers and
driver’s license numbers.
At the hearing the next day, Romero (representing herself)
appeared in person, and defense counsel appeared remotely. According to
Romero, the trial court permitted her to speak briefly but did not let her
present any documentary evidence.1 Because the proceeding was not reported
by a court reporter, however, the record does not confirm one way or the other
whether Romero asked for the opportunity to present any such evidence.
According to the court’s corrected settled statement submitted in this appeal,
the court has no recollection whether Romero brought any documents to the
hearing, and no documentary or live testimony was authorized or received at
the hearing.2
1 According to Romero, she was prepared to present (1) redacted
copies of the bail bond records showing Jones posted bail for Brown in
California, and (2) business records from the Georgia Secretary of State
identifying Jones as the registered agent for the moving company.
2 The trial court explained that the matter was calendared as a
nonevidentiary law and motion hearing, new documents are generally not
accepted after a tentative has been posted, the court will generally not review
3
After oral argument, the trial court adopted its tentative ruling
and granted Jones’s motion to quash. It also struck the bail bond records.
The next day, Romero filed a supplemental declaration, in which
she attempted to authenticate the bail bond records with her own personal
knowledge and an e-mail from the bail bond company’s representative. She
also attached as an exhibit a document that appears to be a printout from the
Georgia Secretary of State identifying Jones as the registered agent for Super
Moving Heroes, LLC, a Georgia limited liability company, as well as what
appears to be a Yelp printout regarding a moving company called Super
Moving Heroes that apparently services the Lake Forest area. However,
Romero’s supplemental declaration did not mention or authenticate either
exhibit. There is no indication the trial court considered the uninvited
supplemental declaration.
Romero filed a notice of appeal. In lieu of a reporter’s transcript,
she submitted a proposed settled statement describing the proceedings below,
and she attached, among other documents, another Georgia Secretary of
State printout concerning Super Moving Heroes, LLC. The trial court
determined that modifications to Romero’s proposed settled statement were
required and issued a corrected settled statement concerning what transpired
at the hearing. (See Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.137(f)(3)(B)(i).)
documents that were not first presented to the other side, and sharing any
documents brought to the hearing would have been “extremely difficult” since
defense counsel appeared remotely.
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DISCUSSION
For a court to exercise specific jurisdiction3 over a nonresident
defendant, the defendant must have purposefully availed herself of forum
benefits, the controversy must be related to or arise out of her forum contacts,
and the assertion of personal jurisdiction must comport with fair play and
substantial justice. (ParaFi Digital Opportunities LP v. Egorov (2025) 108
Cal.App.5th 124, 134 (ParaFi).) The purposeful availment “requirement
ensures defendants will not be haled into a jurisdiction solely because [of]
fortuitous or attenuated contacts or because of the unilateral activity of
another party.” (Farina v. SAVWCL III, LLC (2020) 50 Cal.App.5th 286,
294−295.)
“When a defendant moves to quash service of process, the
plaintiff bears the initial burden of demonstrating facts justifying the
exercise of jurisdiction. [Citation.] To carry this burden, the plaintiff must do
more than merely allege facts.” (ParaFi, supra, 108 Cal.App.5th at p. 133.)
Instead, she “must support [her] allegations with ‘competent evidence of
jurisdictional facts.’” (Rivelli v. Hemm (2021) 67 Cal.App.5th 380, 393
(Rivelli).) That means providing “‘specific evidentiary facts, through affidavits
and other authenticated documents, sufficient to allow the court to
independently conclude whether jurisdiction is appropriate.’” (Swenberg v.
dmarcian, Inc. (2021) 68 Cal.App.5th 280, 291 (Swenberg); see ViaView, Inc.
v. Retzlaff (2016) 1 Cal.App.5th 198, 218 [plaintiff must “produce admissible
evidence that support[s] its jurisdictional facts” to defeat motion to quash].) A
3 Romero contends Jones is subject to California’s specific
jurisdiction. She does not assert Jones is subject to general jurisdiction.
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plaintiff “‘cannot rely on allegations in an unverified complaint or vague and
conclusory assertions of ultimate facts.’” (Swenberg, at p. 291.)
If the plaintiff shows “by a preponderance of the evidence . . . that
the defendant has purposefully availed [her]self of the forum and the
plaintiff’s claims relate to or arise out of the defendant’s forum-related
contacts . . . , the burden shifts to the defendant to demonstrate that the
exercise of jurisdiction would be unreasonable.” (Rivelli, supra, 67
Cal.App.5th at p. 393.)
When the facts are undisputed, we independently determine
whether the exercise of special jurisdiction is fair and reasonable under all of
the circumstances. (ParaFi, supra, 108 Cal.App.5th at p. 133.) We review the
trial court’s evidentiary determinations for abuse of discretion. (Preciado v.
Freightliner Custom Chassis Corp. (2023) 87 Cal.App.5th 964, 975.)
Romero asserts the trial court erred by not allowing her to
present additional evidence at the hearing. But because the proceeding below
was not reported, there is nothing in the record confirming Romero in fact
offered to present any evidence at the hearing. The court, for its part, has no
recollection of her trying to do so. Even assuming Romero did ask to present
additional evidence at the hearing, “the court did not abuse its discretion in
refusing [any] last-minute request” to fix evidentiary issues. (Lowery v.
Kindred Healthcare Operating, Inc. (2020) 49 Cal.App.5th 119, 126.) We
therefore have no basis to conclude the court abused its discretion or
otherwise denied Romero a fair hearing.
Romero alternatively argues that if the trial court had considered
the proffered evidence, it would have found she made a prima facie showing
of specific jurisdiction. But even if the court had permitted Romero to submit
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her evidence, those documents would not have warranted a different
outcome.
The bail bond documents, for example, were not authenticated.
And even if they had been, they would at most show Jones had contact with
California after the underlying incident, which is insufficient to create
specific jurisdiction. (Cadle Co. II, Inc. v. Fiscus (2008) 163 Cal.App.4th 1232,
1239 [relevant period for measuring nonresident defendant’s contacts with
forum is when plaintiff’s cause of action arose].)
Similarly, the Georgia Secretary of State printouts and the Yelp
printout likewise were not authenticated and thus inadmissible. And the
record is devoid of any evidence that the Super Moving Heroes company
listed in the Yelp printout is the same Super Moving Heroes company
registered in Georgia.
Because Romero did not support her allegations of specific
jurisdiction with “‘affidavits and other authenticated documents’” (Swenberg,
supra, 68 Cal.App.5th at p. 291) constituting “‘competent evidence of
jurisdictional facts’” (Rivelli, supra, 67 Cal.App.5th at p. 393), Jones’s motion
to quash was properly granted.
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DISPOSITION
The order is affirmed. Jones shall recover her costs on appeal.
(Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.278(a)(1).)
SCOTT, J.
WE CONCUR:
MOTOIKE, P. J.
DELANEY, J.
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