Ellen DeGeneres’ legal team makes new claims about 2023 car crash
Ellen DeGeneres is pushing back against a lawsuit connected to a 2023 car crash, with her legal team now challenging whether the case was even properly served in the first place. According to court documents obtained by People Magazine, her attorneys are asking the court to throw out the delivery of legal papers related to the alleged incident, calling the process invalid.
The filing explains that DeGeneres’ legal team submitted a motion to quash the service of summons after the plaintiff claimed there were three separate attempts to deliver the documents on 5th, 6th and 7th January of this year. But her lawyers argue that those attempts do not meet the legal standard because the paperwork was never delivered directly to DeGeneres.
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Instead, the service attempts reportedly took place at the offices of NKSFB, LLC, a business management firm. DeGeneres’ attorneys say that serving documents at that location does not count as proper service since it is not her personal address and does not guarantee the documents reached her in a legally valid way.
The court documents also acknowledge that “certain documents were dropped off at the reception desk at Neuman + Associates,” which is a division of NKSFB, on 2023 December, 2025. Even so, the filing maintains that this still does not qualify as valid service under the law. In other words, her legal team is arguing that the paperwork was dropped in the wrong place and that the lawsuit cannot move forward based on that delivery.
The lawsuit itself stems from a motor vehicle accident the plaintiff claims occurred in Santa Barbara County on 16th October, 2023. The woman is suing DeGeneres for general negligence, alleging the crash caused both property damage and personal injury. According to the filing, the plaintiff claims DeGeneres entered an intersection without stopping at a stop sign and allegedly crashed into her Tesla.
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At this stage, the legal focus is not on whether the crash happened exactly as described, but rather on whether the case was properly initiated. If the court agrees with DeGeneres’ legal team and grants the motion to quash, the plaintiff may need to restart the service process correctly before the case can proceed.
Situations like this are not uncommon in civil lawsuits, especially when high profile figures are involved and legal teams scrutinize every procedural step. Proper service of legal documents is a basic but critical requirement in the court system, and disputes over whether that process was followed can delay or even derail cases.
For now, the lawsuit remains in limbo while the court considers the request from DeGeneres’ attorneys. PEOPLE Magazine first reported the details after reviewing the court filings, and there has been no additional public comment from DeGeneres beyond the legal motion itself.