HEATHER ROYAL VS. APPDIRECT, INC. ET AL

Matter on calendar for Monday, July 7, 2025, Line 4, DEFENDANT JANINE DEPULA's MOTION TO QUASH SERVICE OF SUMMONS OR STAY OR DISMISS. Defendant Janine Depula's motion to quash is off calendar.

On February 5, 2025, Defendants Appdirect, Inc. and Appsmart, Inc. through counsel filed a motion to compel arbitration and stay all proceedings here pending the arbitration. Two weeks later-on February 19, 2025, Defendant Janine Depula through the same counsel filed the instant motion to quash service on her. That counsel filed a reply supporting the motion to compel arbitration and stay all proceedings on February 27, 2025, and never sought to modify the request for a stay.

On March 5, 2025, the motion to compel arbitration and stay came on for hearing before a visiting judge; defense counsel never suggested that the motion to quash, which was pending, should be excepted from their proposed stay. The visiting took that motion under submission.

On May 5, 2025, while the motion to compel arbitration and stay was still under submission, Defendant Depula's motion to quash came on for hearing before the undersigned. The court continued the motion to quash for jurisdiction discovery. Meanwhile, on May 5, 2025, the visiting judge issued her ruling granting the motion to compel arbitration and stay. The visiting judge did not except the motion to quash from the stay; indeed, counsel never made any request to that effect. Thus, the stay requested by counsel is now in place and this court, like the parties, must refrain from taking action. The motion to quash is off calendar and can be re-calendared once the arbitration is complete.

Defendant DePula points out she was not a party to the motion to compel arbitration and stay judicial proceedings. Perhaps, but her counsel-the same counsel who made that motion-knew about the request for a stay and notwithstanding this knowledge neither Defendant nor her counsel opposed the stay in any way, let alone on the specific grounds that her pending motion to quash should be excepted. The stay is in place, meaning judicial proceedings are abated until the arbitration is completed.

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