Filed 5/20/21 Rodillas v. Shurwest CA2/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 ONE GLORIA SALVADOR RODILLAS, B304834 Plaintiff and Appellant, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. 19STCV21497) v. SHURWEST, LLC, et al., Defendants and Respondents. APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Maureen Duffy-Lewis, Judge. Reversed and remanded with directions. Reif Law Group, Brandon S. Reif, Ohia A. Amadi, and Lisa M. Foutch for Plaintiff and Appellant. DLA Piper, Jeanette Barzelay, Evi Schueller, and Hector E. Corea for Defendants and Respondents. ____________________________ Plaintiff Gloria Salvador Rodillas appeals from an order granting defendants and respondents Shurwest, LLC and Shurwest Holding Company, Inc.’s (collectively, Shurwest) motion to quash service of process for lack of personal jurisdiction. Plaintiff claimed Shurwest, based in Arizona, was involved in selling her an improper retirement investment product that led to significant financial losses. The product consisted of two parts: a life insurance policy and a separate investment with Future Income Payments, LLC (FIP) to fund the premiums on the policy. The trial court concluded that none of the parties involved in the transaction was Shurwest’s agents, and thus jurisdiction was not proper. The trial court implicitly denied plaintiff’s request to conduct jurisdictional discovery. On appeal, plaintiff argues the trial court abused its discretion by denying her the opportunity to conduct discovery prior to ruling on the motion to quash. We agree. Agency is not the sole basis by which a court may assert jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant; a defendant may also be subject to jurisdiction by virtue of selling a defective product to California consumers. Although Shurwest submitted evidence below that it was uninvolved with plaintiff’s FIP investment, it admits on appeal that it was involved in the sale of the life insurance policy, which suggests discovery may reveal sufficient California contacts to assert jurisdiction. Further, it is not clear that the FIP investment is not also relevant to jurisdiction. Shurwest’s evidence showed that three of its employees, purportedly acting without Shurwest’s knowledge, used Shurwest resources to market the FIP investment at issue. Although Shurwest claims its ignorance frees it from any ties to the FIP investment, we conclude plaintiff 2 is entitled to conduct jurisdictional discovery on this issue as well. Accordingly, we reverse. FACTUAL BACKGROUND Except where noted, we take the following facts from plaintiff’s complaint. Plaintiff immigrated to the United States from the Philippines in 1983 at age 32. She is not fluent in English and struggles to speak and understand it. Plaintiff began a professional relationship with Gerald Andrew Ladalardo, Jr., in 2017. Ladalardo worked for CMAM, Inc. dba Heritage Financial Services (Heritage), a financial services …
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