Golunova

BACKGROUND

In 2014, Victoria Golunova started California Home Health Care, LLC (CHH) with the assistance of her fiancé, Igor Lyustin.2 CHH provided medical services to clients and billed Medicare for reimbursement. At some point, Lyustin and Daniel Akhromstev3 began discussing Daniel joining CHH, and, in July 2015, Daniel’s wife, Ann, became a member of CHH along with Golunova. Lyustin and Daniel were silent partners who attended board meetings and helped make key decisions. Although the CHH operating agreement designated Ann as CHH’s operations manager, it was understood that Ann would not serve in that capacity. Instead, Daniel began working at CHH, and, over time, he effectively became CHH’s operations manager. By 2017, CHH was not profitable, and it could not bill Medicare for reimbursement until it passed an inspection by the Joint Commission on Health Care Accreditation (JCAHO).

2 We take these summarized facts largely from the trial

court’s statement of decision. 3 Because defendants Daniel Akhromstev and Ann

Akhromstev share a last name, we will refer to them herein by their first names.

2 Mariya Rychkova joined CHH as a third member with the understanding that she…