Roy

This is a routine breach of contract and fraud action brought by Lucky Star Industries, Inc. (as assignee) against an Illinois corporation, Audio Source, Inc., and several of its officers/directors/shareholders, Stanley Roy, Michael Roy and Janice Roy (the Roys) and Janice Quinn. The gravamen of the complaint is Audio Source’s failure to pay for goods.

Lucky Star filed its action on December 9, 2002. On February 11, 2003, defendants filed a joint answer in which they asserted 24 affirmative defenses, of which the sixth was “The court lacks jurisdiction over these answering defendants because the acts complained of occurred outside of the State of California, these answering defendants are not residents of the Statement [sic] of California and there was [sic] no contacts with the State of California to give the court jurisdiction over these answering defendants.”

Defendants did not, however, immediately act on their assertion of this purported defense. Instead, they proceeded to actively participate in the litigation. They filed a case management statement and attended conferences; they propounded discovery and filed numerous motions to compel when satisfactory responses…