Doe v. Sequoia Capital
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-05881
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Amber Doe v. Sequoia Capital, Judge Swain terminated Doe’s transfer challenge and fee-waiver application because this court lacked jurisdiction.
Amber Doe, who was representing herself, must seek further relief in the Southern District of California rather than this court.
What happened
Amber Doe, representing herself, sued Sequoia Capital and others. The court previously ordered the case transferred to the Southern District of California, and Doe’s earlier challenge to that transfer was denied.
In July 2025, Doe asked the court to vacate the transfer order and applied to proceed without paying filing fees. The court said it no longer had jurisdiction to consider those requests because the case had been physically transferred.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain directed the Clerk of Court to terminate both the motion and the fee-waiver application. She said any relief Doe seeks must be requested in the Southern District of California and denied fee-waiver status for an appeal, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Doe v. Sequoia Capital · No. 1:23-cv-05881
- Laura Swain
- July 24, 2025
Background
Amber Doe, who was representing herself, filed the action on July 6, 2023. On August 1, 2023, the court ordered the case transferred to the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. Before the Clerk’s Office electronically transferred the case, Doe filed documents challenging the transfer. The court treated those documents as a motion under Rule 60(b), which allows a party to seek relief from a court order, and denied the motion.
On July 11, 2025, Doe submitted a motion to vacate the transfer order and an application to proceed without paying filing fees. The court relied on Second Circuit precedent stating that a district court lacks jurisdiction to rule on a motion after the transferred case has been physically transferred.
Ruling
The court held that it lacked jurisdiction to consider Doe’s motion to vacate the transfer order or her application to proceed without paying filing fees. It directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the application at ECF 12 and the motion at ECF 13. The court stated that any relief Doe seeks must be filed in the Southern District of California.
The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. It therefore denied fee-waiver status for purposes of an appeal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.