Litchmore-Smith v. Alan J. Waintraub, Esq.
- John Koeltl
- 1:24-cv-04908
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Litchmore-Smith v. Waintraub, Judge Koeltl transferred the case to the Eastern District of New York without deciding its claims.
The transfer affects Florence F. Litchmore-Smith and the named defendants by moving the case from the Southern District of New York to the Eastern District of New York. The transferee court will decide the pending emergency requests and later issues in the case.
What happened
Florence F. Litchmore-Smith, representing herself, sued Alan J. Waintraub and other defendants over disputes involving two Brooklyn properties and related New York state-court proceedings. She asserted federal constitutional and state-law claims and sought emergency court orders.
The Southern District of New York transferred the case to the Eastern District of New York because the properties and a significant part of the alleged events were in Brooklyn. The court did not decide whether her claims were valid or whether she should receive the requested emergency relief.
Judge John G. Koeltl ordered the transfer under the federal venue statute and closed the case in the Southern District. The Eastern District will decide whether to lift restrictions on access to the complaint and whether to grant the requested emergency relief.
The detailed version
- Litchmore-Smith v. Alan J. Waintraub, Esq. · No. 1:24-cv-04908
- John Koeltl
- July 2, 2024
Background
Florence F. Litchmore-Smith filed this action without a lawyer. Although the complaint listed Florence F. Smith and Florence F. Litchmore-Smith as plaintiffs, the court treated Florence F. Litchmore-Smith as the only plaintiff because she was the only person who signed the complaint. She paid the filing fees.
The action concerns the plaintiff’s alleged ownership interests in two real properties in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York, and legal proceedings involving those properties in the New York State Supreme Court for Kings County. The plaintiff named Alan J. Waintraub, Esq., identified in connection with the Law Offices of Alan J. Waintraub PLLC and Montrose Equity Partners LLC; Lester Wayne Mackey; Bijan Nassi; Damion Mills; Shay Krausz, identified in connection with SHK Sales; and Bradley Marsh and Peter Marsh, identified in connection with Jemcap Funding LLC. The court understood the complaint to assert claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law.
The plaintiff also filed a request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order. Because attachments to the complaint contained complete financial account numbers, the court restricted electronic access to the complaint to case participants.
Venue and Transfer
Venue is the federal judicial district where a case may properly be heard. The court explained that federal law generally permits a civil action to be filed where the defendants reside, where a substantial part of the events or property involved in the case is located, or, in limited circumstances, where a defendant is subject to the court’s authority.
The plaintiff alleged where many defendants’ business locations might be found but did not allege where any defendant resided. The court therefore could not determine whether venue was proper in the Southern District under the residence-based provision. The plaintiff did allege that some events occurred in Great Neck, Nassau County, and Monsey, Rockland County, and that the properties were in Brooklyn. The court noted that Rockland County is in the Southern District, while Brooklyn and the related state-court proceedings are in the Eastern District.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), a court may transfer a case to another federal district where it could have been brought when transfer would be more convenient for the parties and witnesses and would serve the interests of justice. The court concluded that transfer was appropriate because the plaintiff resides in Kings County, the properties are there, and a significant portion of the alleged events occurred there. It also reasoned that relevant documents and witnesses could be located in the Eastern District.
Ruling
The court directed the Clerk of Court to transfer the action to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The order closed the action in the Southern District of New York. It left to the Eastern District whether to lift the electronic-access restriction on the complaint and whether to grant the relief requested in the plaintiff’s emergency-motion filing.
The court also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees. The court did not decide the merits of the plaintiff’s federal or state-law claims.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.