FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

VITALY IVANOVICH SMAGIN,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

ASHOT YEGIAZARYAN, AKA Ashot 

Egiazaryan, an individual; 

COMPAGNIE MONÉGASQUE DE 

BANQUE, AKA CMB Bank; 

NATALIA DOZORTSEVA, an 

individual; ARTEM EGIAZARYAN, an 

individual; VITALY GOGOKHIA, an 

individual; MURIELLE JOUNIAUX, an 

individual; RATNIKOV EVGENY 

NIKOLAEVICH, an individual; 

PRESTIGE TRUST COMPANY, LTD.; H.

EDWARD RYALS, an individual; 

ALEXIS GASTON THIELEN, an 

individual; STEPHAN YEGIAZARYAN, 

AKA Stephan Egiazarian, an 

individual; SUREN YEGIAZARYAN, 

AKA Suren Egiazaryian, an 

individual,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 21-55537

D.C. No.

2:20-cv-11236-

RGK-PLA

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

R. Gary Klausner, District Judge, Presiding
2 SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN

Argued and Submitted April 6, 2022

Pasadena, California

Filed June 10, 2022

Before: Mary M. Schroeder and Susan P. Graber, Circuit 

Judges, and Stephen M. McNamee,* District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Graber

SUMMARY**

RICO

The panel reversed the district court’s dismissal, for lack 

of statutory standing, of a civil action under the Racketeer 

Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and remanded for 

further proceedings.

Plaintiff Vitaly Smagin, a Russian citizen who resides in 

Russia, filed a civil RICO suit against Ashot Yegiazaryan, a 

Russian citizen who resides in California, and eleven other 

defendants. After securing a foreign arbitration award 

against Ashot, Smagin obtained a judgment from a United 

States district court confirming the award and giving Smagin 

the rights to execute on that judgment in California and to 

pursue discovery. Smagin alleged that defendants engaged 

* The Honorable Stephen M. McNamee, United States District 

Judge for the District of Arizona, sitting by designation.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It 

has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN 3

in illegal activity, in violation of RICO, to thwart the 

execution of that California judgment.

Consistent with the Second and Third Circuits, but 

disagreeing with the Seventh Circuit’s residency-based test 

for domestic injuries involving intangible property, the panel 

held that the alleged injuries to a judgment obtained by 

Smagin from a United States district court in California were 

domestic injuries to property such that Smagin had statutory 

standing under RICO. The panel concluded that, for 

purposes of standing under RICO, the California judgment 

existed as property in California because the rights that it 

provided to Smagin existed only in California. In addition, 

much of the conduct underlying the alleged injury occurred 

in, or was targeted at, California.

COUNSEL

Alexander D. Burch (argued), Baker & McKenzie LLP, 

Houston, Texas; Barry J. Thompson, Baker & McKenzie 

LLP, Los Angeles, California; Nicholas O. Kennedy, Baker 

& McKenzie LLP, Dallas, Texas; for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Michael C. Tu (argued) and Peter J. Brody, Cooley LLP, 

Santa Monica, California, for Defendant-Appellee 

Compagnie Monégasque de Banque.

David J. Stein (argued), Masuda Funai Eifert & Mitchell 

Ltd., Chicago, Illinois; Asa Markel, Masuda Funai Eifert & 

Mitchell Ltd., Torrance, California; for Defendant-Appellee

Alexis Gaston Thielen.

Ashot Yegiazaryan (argued), Beverly Hills, California, 

pro se Defendant-Appellee.
4 SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN

OPINION

GRABER, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff Vitaly Smagin, a Russian citizen who resides in 

Russia, filed a civil suit under the Racketeer Influenced and 

Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961–

68, against Defendant Ashot Yegiazaryan (“Ashot”), a 

Russian citizen who resides in California, and eleven other 

defendants.1 After securing a foreign arbitration award 

against Ashot, Plaintiff obtained a judgment from a United 

States district court confirming the award and giving 

Plaintiff the rights to execute on that judgment in California 

and to pursue discovery. Plaintiff alleges that Defendants 

engaged in illegal activity, in violation of RICO, to thwart 

the execution of that California judgment. On appeal, we are 

asked to decide whether the alleged injuries to a judgment 

obtained by Plaintiff from a United States district court in 

California are domestic injuries such that Plaintiff has 

statutory standing under RICO. We conclude that Plaintiff 

alleges a domestic injury, reverse the district court’s 

dismissal of the complaint, and remand for further 

proceedings.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff’s allegations span decades and continents. As 

alleged, the chief architect of Plaintiff’s woes is Defendant 

1 Plaintiff asserts that the alleged RICO enterprise comprised 

(1) Compagnie Monegasque De Banque (“CMB Bank”); (2) Ashot 

Yegiazaryan; (3) Suren Yegiazaryan; (4) Artem Yegiazaryan; 

(5) Stephan Yegiazaryan; (6) Natalia Dozortseva; (8) Murielle Jouniaux; 

(9) Alexis Gaston Thielen; (10) Ratnikov Evgeny Nikolaevich; (11) H. 

Edward Ryals; and (12) Prestige Trust Company, Ltd. For simplicity, 

we will refer to Defendant Ashot Yegiazaryan as Ashot.
SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN 5

Ashot Yegiazaryan. Between 2003 and 2009, Ashot and 

others used a series of fraudulent transactions to steal 

Plaintiff’s shares in a joint real estate investment in Moscow, 

Russia. In 2010, Russian authorities criminally indicted 

Defendants Ashot and Artem Yegiazaryan in Russia for that 

fraud. The pair fled to California. They now live in Beverly 

Hills, in a home owned by Ashot’s cousin, Defendant Suren 

Yegiazaryan.

Also in 2010, Plaintiff commenced arbitration 

proceedings in London, U.K., against Ashot for his alleged 

fraudulent actions and for his attempts to conceal the fraud. 

In November 2014, the arbitration panel rendered a final 

award in Plaintiff’s favor and against Ashot in the amount of 

$84 million (“London Award”).

Plaintiff then filed an enforcement action in the Central 

District of California to confirm and enforce the London 

Award against Ashot. In December 2014, a district judge 

confirmed the London Award and entered a judgment 

against Ashot under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 58 

(“California Judgment”). The district judge entered the 

California Judgment pursuant to the New York Convention, 

also known as the Convention on the Recognition and 

Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. The Federal 

Arbitration Act provides that the New York Convention is 

enforceable in the United States and that federal district 

courts have original jurisdiction of actions falling under the 

Convention. 9 U.S.C. §§ 201–209; China Nat’l Metal 

Prods. Imp./Exp. Co. v. Apex Digit., Inc., 379 F.3d 796, 799 

(9th Cir. 2004).

On December 23, 2014, the district court entered a 

temporary protective order freezing Ashot’s assets in 

California. That order specifically referenced assets that 

Ashot may receive in the future, related to an arbitration 
6 SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN

dispute between Ashot and Suleymon Kerimov. In February 

2015, that temporary order was converted into a preliminary 

injunction with the same terms.

In May 2015, Ashot settled the arbitration dispute 

against Suleymon Kerimov for $198 Million (“Kerimov 

Award”). Plaintiff alleges in this action that, in order to 

avoid using these funds to pay the London Award, which 

also would satisfy the California Judgment, Ashot “create[d] 

a web of offshore entities and a complex ownership structure 

to secret the Kerimov Award settlement proceeds and avoid 

[the district] court’s reach.”

Many of the alleged components of Ashot’s scheme 

occurred outside the United States. For example, Plaintiff 

alleges that Ashot received the Kerimov Award through his 

attorneys in London; established a trust in Lichtenstein to 

hold proceeds from the Kerimov Award (“the Alpha Trust”); 

purchased a business incorporated in Nevis to create 

additional layers of complexity; established a bank account 

in Monaco with Defendant CMB Bank for that Nevis 

corporation; and then moved the funds from the Alpha Trust 

to that bank account.

But Plaintiff also alleges numerous RICO activities 

involving domestic entities and property in the United 

States. For example, Plaintiff alleges that, as a part of 

keeping the settlement proceeds out of the California district 

court’s reach, Ashot, with the help of others, developed a 

scheme to hide assets in the United States by using shell 

companies owned by Suren and other members of the 

Yegiazaryan family. The shell companies included Clear 

Voices, Inc., a Nevada company “created by Suren 

Yegiazaryan, but controlled by Ashot Yegiazaryan, for the 

purpose of sheltering Ashot Yegiazaryan’s U.S. assets from 

his creditors.”
SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN 7

Plaintiff also alleges that Ashot schemed to have 

associates file fraudulent claims against him in foreign 

jurisdictions so that they could obtain sham judgments that 

were designed to compete with the California Judgment. On 

April 1, 2020, the district court issued an order stating that 

Ashot, Defendant Suren Yegiazaryan, and others acting on 

behalf of Ashot “must immediately cease all actions in Nevis 

or any other jurisdiction that would prevent, hinder, or delay 

[Plaintiff’s] ability to collect on the assets of the Alpha Trust 

pursuant to the current and forthcoming orders of the 

Liechtenstein Court or this Court.” On July 9, 2020, the 

district court issued another order that prohibited Ashot from 

making further modifications to the Alpha Trust or to the 

administration of the bank account opened with CMB Bank 

without first obtaining court approval. On September 16, 

2020, the district court found Ashot in contempt for violating 

the previous two orders.

Plaintiff further alleges that, in an attempt to avoid 

following the district court’s orders, Ashot submitted to the 

district court in California a doctor’s note that Plaintiff 

believed to be forged. Plaintiff alleges that, when Plaintiff 

attempted to depose the California doctor who wrote the 

note, Ashot used “intimidation, threats, or corrupt 

persuasion” to influence the doctor to avoid service of the 

subpoena so as to prevent her from providing evidence to the 

district court.

On December 11, 2020, Plaintiff filed his complaint in 

this case. The complaint contains two claims against all 

Defendants: (1) a substantive RICO claim of participating 

in a criminal enterprise in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c) 

and (2) a RICO conspiracy claim of conspiring to participate 

in a criminal enterprise in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d). 

Plaintiff alleges that Defendants’ illegal conduct has harmed 
8 SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN

his property, namely, the California Judgment, through the 

delay and loss of opportunity to execute on the judgment. 

On May 5, 2021, the district court dismissed the complaint 

on the ground that Plaintiff “fail[ed] to adequately plead a 

domestic injury in support of his two RICO claims.”

Plaintiff timely appeals.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review de novo a district court’s dismissal of a 

complaint for failure to plead statutory standing. Cetacean

Cmty. v. Bush, 386 F.3d 1169, 1173 (9th Cir. 2004). We 

accept as true all well-pleaded facts in the complaint and 

draw all reasonable inferences in Plaintiff’s favor. Brown v. 

Elec. Arts, Inc., 724 F.3d 1235, 1247–48 (9th Cir. 2013).

DISCUSSION

RICO provides a private right of action for persons 

pursuing civil remedies. Specifically, “[a]ny person injured 

in his business or property by reason of a violation of section 

1962 of this chapter may sue [] in any appropriate United 

States district court . . . .” 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c). To have 

statutory standing, “a civil RICO plaintiff must show: 

(1) that his alleged harm qualifies as injury to his business or 

property; and (2) that his harm was by reason of the RICO 

violation, which requires the plaintiff to establish proximate 

causation.” Just Film, Inc. v. Buono, 847 F.3d 1108, 1118–

19 (9th Cir. 2017) (quoting Canyon Cnty. v. Syngenta Seeds, 

Inc., 519 F.3d 969, 972 (9th Cir. 2008)) (internal quotation 

marks omitted).

In RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. Eur. Cmty., 579 U.S. 325, 346 

(2016), the Supreme Court held that there is an additional 

standing requirement for the alleged harm to business or 
SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN 9

property. The Court explained that, although RICO may 

have some extraterritorial effects, the statute’s private right 

of action does not overcome the presumption against 

extraterritoriality. “A private RICO plaintiff therefore must 

allege and prove a domestic injury to its business or 

property.” Id. The Court offered no further explanation of 

what constitutes a domestic injury. See id. at 354 (“The 

application of this rule in any given case will not always be 

self-evident, as disputes may arise as to whether a particular 

alleged injury is ‘foreign’ or ‘domestic.’ But we need not 

concern ourselves with that question in this case.”).

“A judgment is property . . . .” Kingvision Pay-PerView Ltd. v. Lake Alice Bar, 168 F.3d 347, 352 (9th Cir. 

1999). It provides legal rights to a judgment creditor, 

including the right to have the judgment enforced by a writ 

of execution in a manner that “accord[s] with the procedure 

of the state where the court is located” and the right to 

“obtain discovery from any person—including the judgment 

debtor—as provided in these rules or by the procedure of the 

state where the court is located.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 69(a); see 

also JUDGMENT CREDITOR, Black’s Law Dictionary 

(11th ed. 2019) (“A person having a legal right to enforce 

execution of a judgment for a specific sum of money.”); 

Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 18 cmt. c (1982) (“A 

judgment for the plaintiff awarding him a sum of money 

creates a debt in that amount in his favor. He may maintain 

proceedings by way of execution for enforcement of the 

judgment.”).

The nature of a domestic judgment is unaffected by the 

fact that it confirms a foreign arbitration award. Once a 

foreign arbitration award is confirmed by a federal district 

court under the New York Convention, “the judgment has 

the same force and effect of a judgment in a civil action and 
10 SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN

may be enforced by the means available to enforce any other

judgment.” Ministry of Def. & Support for the Armed Forces 

of the Islamic Republic of Iran v. Cubic Def. Sys., Inc., 

665 F.3d 1091, 1094 n.1 (9th Cir. 2011).

The key question, then, is where the California Judgment 

exists as property. We have previously concluded that “the 

location of intangible property varies depending on the 

purpose to be served” by that property. See Off. Depot Inc. 

v. Zuccarini, 596 F.3d 696, 702 (9th Cir. 2010) (noting that 

“attaching a situs to intangible property is necessarily a legal 

fiction; therefore, the selection of a situs for intangibles must 

be context-specific, embodying a common-sense appraisal 

of the requirements of justice and convenience in particular 

conditions.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

We conclude that, for purposes of standing under RICO, 

the California Judgment exists as property in California. The 

rights that the California Judgment provides to Plaintiff exist 

only in California, the place where he can obtain a writ of 

execution against or obtain discovery from Ashot. Indeed, 

Plaintiff obtained the judgment in California precisely 

because Ashot resides in California, and that is where 

Plaintiff desires to exercise the rights conferred by the 

California Judgment. It would make no sense to conclude 

that the California Judgment exists as property in Russia, 

because the judgment grants no rights whatsoever to Plaintiff 

in Russia.

Our conclusion is bolstered by the fact that much of the 

conduct underlying the alleged injury also occurred in, or 

was targeted at, California. As noted, Plaintiff alleges that 

Defendants corruptly and illegally prevented him from 

executing the judgment by, among other things, filing false 

documents in the California court; intimidating a witness 

who resides in California; and directing, from California, a 
SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN 11

scheme to funnel millions of dollars into the United States 

through various companies, including a U.S.-based company 

that Ashot effectively controlled. Plaintiff also alleges that 

Ashot had associates file fraudulent claims against him in 

various jurisdictions in order to obtain sham judgments that 

were designed to compete with the California Judgment. 

Those alleged illegal acts were designed to subvert 

Plaintiff’s rights that are executable in California. 

Accordingly, the alleged harm to Plaintiff’s rights under the 

California Judgment constitutes a domestic injury.

Our conclusion comports with our prior case law. We 

have discussed domestic injuries under RICO only once in 

the years since the Supreme Court issued RJR Nabisco. In 

City of Almaty v. Khrapunov, 956 F.3d 1129, 1130–31 (9th 

Cir. 2020), the plaintiff, a city in Kazakhstan, alleged that 

the defendants, citizens of Kazakhstan who resided in 

California, violated RICO by rigging auctions of public 

properties in Kazakhstan and then laundering money into 

property in the United States. The plaintiff asserted that its 

alleged domestic injury was the city’s voluntary expenditure 

of funds to track down the stolen property, which was now 

in the United States. Id. at 1132. We concluded that this 

alleged injury was not an independent harm, but “a mere 

downstream effect of the Khrapunovs’ initial theft.” Id. at 

1133. Because the voluntary expenditure of funds was only 

a consequential damage of the initial theft suffered in 

Kazakhstan, it was not causally connected to the predicate 

act of money laundering. Id. at 1134. We held that, 

accordingly, the plaintiff had “fail[ed] to state a cognizable 

injury at all.” Id. Importantly, we noted that the plaintiff 

was not left without recourse in the United States: The city 

could “obtain[] a legal judgment anywhere in the world 

against Defendants,” and then it “could bring that judgment 

to the United States and execute it against any of 
12 SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN

Defendants’ assets for the full amount of the money owed.” 

Id. at 1133.

Here, Plaintiff has done exactly what we suggested the 

plaintiff could do in City of Almaty—he obtained a legal 

judgment and brought it to the United States to execute it 

against the Defendants’ assets. In so doing, Plaintiff 

obtained domestic property in the United States—a 

judgment issued by a United States district court, conferring 

rights that Plaintiff can exercise in California. Plaintiff now 

alleges that Defendants engaged in RICO-violating activity 

(much of it in the United States) that harmed that property. 

Accordingly, Plaintiff has alleged an injury that is both 

cognizable and domestic.

Our decision is also consistent with the approaches taken 

by the Second and Third Circuits after RJR Nabisco. We 

part ways, however, with the Seventh Circuit, which has 

adopted a rigid, residency-based test for domestic injuries 

involving intangible property.

In Bascuñán v. Elsaca, 874 F.3d 806, 809 (2d Cir. 2017), 

a citizen and resident of Chile brought a civil RICO action 

against another citizen and resident of Chile. The plaintiff 

alleged that the defendant had fraudulently stolen 

$64 million from the plaintiff through four separate 

schemes. Id. at 811. The district court dismissed the case 

because the plaintiff had failed to allege a domestic injury. 

Id. at 813. Because the plaintiff resided in Chile, the district 

court reasoned, any economic loss he suffered had occurred 

in Chile. Id. at 814. The Second Circuit reversed the 

dismissal, concluding that the plaintiff had alleged a 
SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN 13

domestic injury.2 The court reasoned that “us[ing] bank 

accounts located within the United States to facilitate or 

conceal the theft of property located outside of the United 

States, on its own, does not establish that a civil RICO 

plaintiff has suffered a domestic injury.” Id. at 824. But 

when a plaintiff alleges that a defendant misappropriated 

“tangible property located in the United States . . . even if the 

owner of the property resides abroad,” the plaintiff has 

alleged a domestic injury. Id. at 824–25.3

The Second Circuit limited its holding to tangible 

property, leaving for another day the question of when an 

injury to intangible property is domestic. Id. at 814 (“At a 

minimum, when a foreign plaintiff maintains tangible 

property in the United States, the misappropriation of that 

property constitutes a domestic injury.”). But here, as in 

Bascuñán, Plaintiff’s allegations go beyond Defendants’ use 

of the United States’ financial system to hide property 

located outside the United States. Although Plaintiff alleges, 

among other things, that Defendants hid assets by moving 

them through shell companies in the United States, his 

2 The Bascuñán court concluded that there were four distinct RICO 

schemes alleged in the complaint and that two of those schemes, as 

pleaded by the plaintiff, involved a domestic injury. Bascuñán, 874 F.3d 

at 811, 824. Nevertheless, it reversed the district court’s dismissal of the 

complaint in its entirety because the district court had “erred in 

dismissing Bascuñán’s Amended Complaint on the grounds that he 

alleged only foreign injuries.” Id. at 824 (emphasis added).

3 After reversal and remand, the plaintiffs in Bascuñán filed a second 

amended complaint, the district court dismissed the second amended 

complaint, and the plaintiffs appealed. Bascuñán v. Elsaca (Bascuñán 

II), 927 F.3d 108 (2d Cir. 2019). The Second Circuit again reversed the 

district court’s dismissal, concluding that, with one exception, “each of 

the injuries alleged in the [second amended complaint] . . . calls for a 

domestic application of civil RICO.” Id. at 120.
14 SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN

central allegation is that those predicate acts injured his right 

to seek property in California from a California resident 

under the California Judgment. Accordingly, we see no 

conflict between our holding and that of Bascuñán.

In Humphrey v. GlaxoSmithKline PLC, 905 F.3d 694, 

696 (3d Cir. 2018), the plaintiffs, who resided in China and 

owned a business in China, filed RICO claims against a 

multinational company with offices in the United States and 

England. They alleged that the defendants had “engaged in 

widespread bribery in China in order to obtain improper 

commercial advantages” and that the defendants’ corrupt 

dealing in China eventually led to the plaintiffs’ being 

imprisoned by Chinese authorities. Id. at 696–97. The 

district court dismissed the RICO claims because the 

plaintiffs failed to allege a domestic injury: “Plaintiffs’ 

business was in China, their only offices were in China, no 

work was done outside of China, Plaintiffs resided in China, 

and . . . any destruction of Plaintiffs’ business occurred 

while Plaintiffs were imprisoned in China by Chinese 

authorities.” Id. at 697–98.

The Third Circuit affirmed, adopting a “standard that is 

not susceptible to mechanical application” and by which 

“few answers will be written in black or white.” Id. at 707–

08 (internal quotation marks omitted). The inquiry would 

“ordinarily include consideration of multiple factors that 

vary from case to case.” Id. at 701.

Whether an alleged injury to an 

intangible interest was suffered domestically 

is a particularly fact-sensitive question 

requiring consideration of multiple factors. 

These include, but are not limited to, where 

the injury itself arose; the location of the 

plaintiff’s residence or principal place of 
SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN 15

business; where any alleged services were 

provided; where the plaintiff received or 

expected to receive the benefits associated 

with providing such services; where any 

relevant business agreements were entered 

into and the laws binding such agreements; 

and the location of the activities giving rise to 

the underlying dispute.

Id. at 707. In addition to noting that its list of factors is not 

exhaustive, the Third Circuit explained that “the applicable 

factors depend on the plaintiff’s allegations; no one factor is 

presumptively dispositive.” Id.

In adopting its standard, the Third Circuit explicitly 

rejected a rigid, residency-based rule developed by the 

Seventh Circuit. See id. at 708–09 (“Although the ease with 

which [the Seventh Circuit’s] bright-line rule can be applied 

gives it some surface appeal, we resist the temptation to 

adopt it as the law of this circuit.”) In Armada (Sing.) PTE 

Ltd. v. Amcol Int’l Corp., 885 F.3d 1090, 1091 (7th Cir. 

2018), a Singaporean shipping company brought RICO 

claims against defendants who resided in Illinois and India. 

As in this case, the plaintiff alleged that the defendants had 

attempted to thwart a judgment issued by a United States 

district court that confirmed a foreign arbitration award. Id.

at 1092. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s 

dismissal of the case after concluding that the plaintiff had 

failed to allege a domestic injury. Id. at 1095. It 

distinguished Bascuñán on the ground that a judgment, 

unlike the assets at issue in Bascuñán, is “intangible 

property.” Id. at 1094. The Seventh Circuit then concluded 

that “a party experiences or sustains injuries to its intangible 

property at its residence.” Id. Because the plaintiff was a 

foreign corporation, any injury to its intangible property, 
16 SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN

even if that property is a judgment issued by a United States 

district court, is a foreign injury. Id. at 1095.

We agree with the Third Circuit that the Seventh 

Circuit’s residency test does not align with RJR Nabisco. 

The Armada test strays from the Supreme Court’s decision 

in two ways. First, the test makes the location of the plaintiff

dispositive, when the Supreme Court stated that it is the 

location of the injury that is relevant to standing. RJR 

Nabisco, 579 U.S. at 346. Second, the Seventh Circuit’s test 

effectively truncates the standing requirement set forth in 

RJR Nabisco if the harm is to intangible property. Rather 

than asking whether a plaintiff alleges “a domestic injury to 

its business or property,” as the Supreme Court described, 

id. (emphasis omitted and added), the Seventh Circuit 

requires that a plaintiff allege a domestic injury to its 

business only, with the location of that business defined by 

the plaintiff’s residence.

We also agree with the Third Circuit that determining 

whether a plaintiff has alleged a domestic injury is a contextspecific inquiry that turns largely on the particular facts 

alleged in a complaint. Even though few, if any, of the listed

factors in Humphrey are relevant here, as this case does not 

concern corrupt dealings between competitors, we see no 

conflict between the Third Circuit’s ruling in Humphrey and 

our conclusion that Plaintiff has alleged a domestic injury.

Finally, we note that, in holding that Plaintiff alleges a 

domestic injury, we express no view on the merits of 

Plaintiff’s claims. Nor do we assess whether the district court 

has jurisdiction over all parties in the action or whether 

Plaintiff has sufficiently alleged proximate causation for 

each Defendant, Just Film, Inc., 847 F.3d at 1118–19. We 
SMAGIN V. YEGIAZARYAN 17

hold only that Plaintiff’s well-pleaded allegations include a 

domestic injury.

REVERSED AND REMANDED for further 

proceedings.