Firsov v. Western Union Financial Services, Inc.
- Nathanael Cousins
- 5:25-cv-04727
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Firsov v. Western Union, Judge Cousins dismissed the case without prejudice because plaintiffs neither paid the filing fee nor established federal jurisdiction.
Sergey Firsov, Iana Rodionova, and Western Union Financial Services, Inc.; the case was dismissed without prejudice.
What happened
In Firsov v. Western Union Financial Services, Inc., self-represented plaintiffs Sergey Firsov and Iana Rodionova sued over a money transfer between Firsov in the United States and Rodionova in Uzbekistan. The court had previously denied their requests to proceed without paying the filing fee and gave them a deadline to pay it.
The plaintiffs did not pay the filing fee. Their amended complaint also did not establish federal jurisdiction. The court found that their Dodd-Frank claim relied on a provision that does not provide a private right to sue, while their other claims were based on state law. The complaint also did not adequately allege the parties’ citizenship or an amount in dispute greater than $75,000 for diversity jurisdiction.
Judge Nathanael M. Cousins dismissed the case without prejudice because the plaintiffs failed to pay the required filing fee and failed to establish federal subject-matter jurisdiction. The court also vacated the scheduled case-management conference and directed the Clerk to close the case.
The detailed version
- Firsov v. Western Union Financial Services, Inc. · No. 5:25-cv-04727
- Nathanael Cousins
- July 23, 2025
Background
Self-represented plaintiffs Sergey Firsov and Iana Rodionova filed a civil action against Western Union Financial Services, Inc. The opinion states that the dispute arose from a money transfer between Firsov in the United States and Rodionova in Uzbekistan.
The court had previously denied both plaintiffs’ applications to proceed without paying the filing fee and set July 11, 2025, as the deadline to pay. Neither plaintiff paid the fee by July 23, 2025. The court had also screened the original complaint, found it deficient in several respects, including its failure to establish federal subject-matter jurisdiction, and allowed the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint. They timely filed a First Amended Complaint.
Subject-Matter Jurisdiction
Federal subject-matter jurisdiction is the court’s legal authority to hear a case. The court explained that plaintiffs bringing a case in federal court must establish that jurisdiction, and that the court must dismiss a case if jurisdiction is absent.
The amended complaint asserted federal-question jurisdiction under the Dodd-Frank Act. In Count Five, the plaintiffs alleged that Western Union violated Section 1073 by failing to provide proper disclosures and failing to correct errors involving a money transfer. The court held that Section 1073 does not provide a valid private cause of action, meaning that the plaintiffs could not use that provision to sue under the Dodd-Frank Act. The remaining claims were state-law claims and therefore did not establish federal-question jurisdiction.
The court also found that the amended complaint did not adequately establish diversity jurisdiction. The plaintiffs did not sufficiently allege Western Union’s citizenship to show complete diversity, and they did not sufficiently allege that more than $75,000 was in controversy. The opinion notes that the amended complaint requested less than $75,000 in damages.
Disposition
The court dismissed the action without prejudice for both failure to pay the required filing fee and lack of federal subject-matter jurisdiction. It vacated the September 3, 2025, case-management conference and directed the Clerk to dismiss the case. All parties had consented to magistrate-judge jurisdiction.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.