Judge: Ashfaq G. Chowdhury, Case: 23GDCV02632, Date: 2024-03-22 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 23GDCV02632    Hearing Date: March 22, 2024    Dept: E

The Court has considered the parties briefs and supporting papers. 

The Court’s tentative is to deny the request for a preliminary injunction. The Court finds, for a number of reasons—but primarily the lack of specificity and clarity of the purported underlying agreement between plaintiff and her deceased brother—that the plaintiff has failed to demonstrate the requisite likelihood of success on the merits.  There is apparently no written agreement, and the supporting declarations provided by the plaintiff are vague and lacking in specificity, in the Court’s view.

In fact, the very declarations submitted by Plaintiff cast grave doubt on Plaintiff’s credibility. The Declaration of Maxim Moradian, M.D. states: “Roobina Hovsepian had inherited money that she kept in cash because she was concerned about qualifying for healthcare benefits.” (Moradian Decl. at para. 3.)

In this Court’s view, there is no way to read this but as a statement about Ms. Hovsepian’s intent to defraud either the county, state, or federal authorities by hiding her her assets and income “because she was concerned about qualifying for healthcare benefits.” (Id.)

It is, frankly, shocking to the Court that a statement about what appears to be Plaintiff’s potential intent to commit health-care fraud is submitted so blithely in a declaration in support of a preliminary injunction, where the crux of Plaintiff’s claim is based on her credibility.  That this is submitted by Dr. Moradian suggests a kind of normalization of fraud—as if hiding one’s assets to make sure one can “qualify[] for healthcare benefits” is simply what people do.  Perhaps that is in fact what some people do—but the Court sees this statement as incredibly damaging to Ms. Hovsepian’s credibility.

Plaintiff’s counsel will be asked to explain this statement and why this statement alone does not fatally damage Ms. Hovsepian’s credibility in this matter.

The Court will hear argument.