Flores v. Vang
- Laura Swain
- 1:24-cv-04536
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Flores v. Vang, Chief Judge Swain transferred Flores’s civil-rights lawsuit to federal court in Central California.
Valerie L. Flores’s case was moved from the Southern District of New York to the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The California court, rather than the New York court, will decide whether she may proceed without prepaying fees and what happens next. The order did not resolve her claims against the defendants.
What happened
In Flores v. Vang, Valerie L. Flores, representing herself, sued several people and organizations under a federal civil-rights law. She alleged events in Sacramento County and San Bernardino County, California.
The Southern District of New York decided that venue was improper there because the defendants and events were connected to California. Because most alleged events occurred in San Bernardino County, the court transferred the case to the Central District of California rather than dismissing it.
Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered the clerk to make the transfer and said the California court would decide whether Flores could proceed without paying filing fees. The New York court did not decide the underlying claims, did not issue summonses, and denied fee-free status for any appeal from this order.
The detailed version
- Flores v. Vang · No. 1:24-cv-04536
- Laura Swain
- June 14, 2024
Background
Valerie L. Flores filed this action without a lawyer under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeking damages and court orders requiring action. The defendants listed in the opinion include Amber Vang, the Sacramento Family Justice Center, an unidentified social worker, Rebecca Irwin, entities associated with San Bernardino County and the West Valley Detention Center, Jessica Gardard, the San Bernardino District Attorney, the San Bernardino Public Defender’s Office, Hotline Bail Bonds (California), Dr. Charles Leeb, Dr. Adnara Velazquez, and Dr. Veronica Montes.
Flores alleged that events supporting her claims occurred in Sacramento County and San Bernardino County, California. Sacramento County is in the Eastern District of California, and San Bernardino County is in the Central District of California.
Venue analysis
Venue is the federal district where a case may properly be heard. The court explained that federal law generally permits venue where the defendants reside, where a substantial part of the events occurred, or, if neither option applies, where a defendant is subject to the court’s authority over that defendant.
The court found that the Southern District of New York was not a proper venue. Flores did not allege the residences of the individual defendants, and the institutional defendants were identified as being in California. The court also concluded that the alleged events occurred in California, not in the Southern District of New York. Both the Eastern District of California and the Central District of California appeared to be proper venues based on the location of the events.
Ruling
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a), when a case is filed in the wrong venue, a court may dismiss it or, when justice favors that result, transfer it to a district where it could have been filed. Judge Laura Taylor Swain concluded that transfer was appropriate because the court was clearly an improper venue and most of the alleged events occurred in San Bernardino County. The court therefore directed the clerk to transfer the action to the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
The order did not decide the merits of Flores’s claims. It stated that the transferee court would decide whether she could proceed without prepaying fees. The Southern District of New York directed that summonses would not issue there and stated that the order closed the action in that court. It also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.