Margolis & Tisman v. Chen CA2/8

Filed 12/15/25 Margolis & Tisman v. Chen CA2/8 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION EIGHT

MARGOLIS & TISMAN LLP, B333744

Plaintiff and Respondent, Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BC512773 v.

SHUN SHENG CHEN,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Colin P. Leis, Judge. Affirmed. Blank Rome, Mike Margolis; Zee Law Group, Tappan Zee and Kimberly Sue Navarro Barrientos for Plaintiff and Respondent. Kenner Law Group and Jason J.L. Yang for Defendant and Appellant. ____________________ In April 2014, Margolis & Tisman LLP won a default judgment against Shun Sheng Chen. Nearly ten years later,

Chen filed a motion to vacate this default judgment, claiming Margolis failed to serve him properly and used “bad addresses.” The trial court denied Chen’s motion and he appealed. We affirm. Substantial evidence supports the trial court’s factual finding that Margolis personally served Chen and the court correctly found the judgment against Chen was not void. Statutory citations are to the Code of Civil Procedure. I Margolis had initially sued Chen and three related corporate defendants (Bountiful Biotech Corp., Bountiful Natural Healing, Inc., and King Shop International) in June 2013. Margolis hired Ace Attorney Service, Inc. to serve Chen. In November 2013, Margolis filed a proof of service of summons, stating it had served Chen by substituted service. Margolis attached a declaration of due diligence from Ace, which reflected that Ace had made a total of nine attempts to serve Chen at two different addresses: the first address was 267 N. Quail Lane in Orange, and the second address was 3111 W. Lincoln Avenue Suite B in Anaheim. In most of the attempts, no one responded when the process server arrived at the address and knocked on the door. The ninth attempt took place on November 14, 2013. At 10:55 a.m. that day, Ace employee Sidney Foster arrived at the Lincoln address and spoke with “Dr. Chen (Asian male, 5’ 6”, 5’ 10”, 140 lbs, Brown eyes, Glasses, Black/Grey hair)[,] who . . . while pointing at the name Shun Sheng, [] stated ‘I don’t go by that name.’ ” After the Asian male refused to state his full name, Foster left the lawsuit documents in his presence and mailed copies of the documents to the Lincoln address. In the proof of service form, Foster stated they served “ ‘John’ Chen (Asian male,