American Asian United Business Association v John Akkaya San Mateo County Superior Court Case Number 18-CIV-06194.


From the San Mateo County online records for this case it is Lawzilla's understanding the following occurred:

Attorney Andrew Watters filed a lawsuit representing he was the attorney for plaintiff American Asian United Business Association, Inc.




The lawsuit alleged: "Plaintiff American Asian United Business Association, Inc. is California corporation qualified to do business in this State."




During the litigation Andrew Watters, Esq., repeatedly represented he was the attorney for American Asian United Business Association, Inc.

Watters' client repeatedly represented that it was American Asian United Business Association, Inc.

Then Andrew Watters declared under penalty of perjury that "I discovered on or about November 22, 2019 that the corporate name differs from.what is in the complaint."








However, just 8 days later on November 30th, his client signed a verification for discovery responses - under penalty of perjury - stating he was an authorized officer for American Asian United Business Association, Inc., and the discovery responses were true and correct.




Andrew Watters then personally served the verification to defense counsel on December 1st, stating he did so under penalty of perjury.




Watters then filed a motion to amend the complaint to replace American Asian United Business Association, Inc. with what he said was the real name of his client American And Asian Unite Association Corp.

The judge denied the motion and repeatedly referenced the naming "mistake" in quotes.

"Plaintiff should have discovered earlier the 'mistake' that its own name was incorrect and the prejudice to Defendants, as a result of the 'mistake' is substantial."




The judge said trial was scheduled in a few weeks and "Defendant does not have a meaningful opportunity to conduct additional discovery relating to the new plaintiff".

The judge said discovery would need to be redone and a trial date set.




The judge then made the tentative order the final ruling of the court.

Lawzilla has not seen this before.

How does an attorney file a lawsuit for the wrong corporation and then pursue the case for over a year?

It was not a typographical error in the complaint.

In our opinion attorneys are supposed to be diligent, catch client mistakes, and perform some level of basic confirmation to know who their client is.

A 60 second search at the California Secretary of State's website should have raised a red flag that the alleged corporation attorney Watters and his law firm were filing a lawsuit for did not exist.

On the other hand, we don't see the problem in simply correcting a company name.

But the judge ruled otherwise.

Significant to us, the judge referred to the issue as not simply correcting a company name, but the change was tantamount to having a "new plaintiff" in the case.

Attorney Andrew Watters told us this is a case of mistaken corporate name that is easily correctable under the law. Despite this, the judge denied the request. It looks like we are simply going to dismiss and re-file the case in the correct corporate name.

Andrew Watters was admitted to the California Bar in 2005. Bar Number 237990.

Andrew G. Watters, Esq.
118 South Boulevard
San Mateo, California 94402-24

Law School: University of California, Hastings College of Law