Van Arsdol v. Charles
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-05366
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Van Arsdol v. Charles, Judge Swain transferred plaintiff’s action to the Eastern District of New York because venue was improper.
The action brought by Robin Craig Van Arsdol against Andre Pierre Charles was transferred from the Southern District of New York to the Eastern District of New York. The transferee court will decide the requests for preliminary injunctive relief and to proceed under seal.
What happened
In Van Arsdol v. Charles, Robin Craig Van Arsdol, representing himself, alleged that Andre Pierre Charles violated his rights through defamatory and threatening social-media posts. Van Arsdol initially sought emergency court orders and later filed a complaint identifying Charles’s address in Brooklyn, New York.
The court ruled that the case was filed in the wrong federal district. Because Charles allegedly resides in Brooklyn, and because Van Arsdol identified no events connecting the claims to the Southern District of New York, the court transferred the case to the Eastern District of New York rather than dismissing it.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered the transfer to happen immediately. The Eastern District will decide Van Arsdol’s requests for emergency injunctive relief and to proceed under seal. The Southern District closed the case there, terminated the pending motions, directed that no summons issue from that court, and denied fee-free status for any appeal.
The detailed version
- Van Arsdol v. Charles · No. 1:25-cv-05366
- Laura Swain
- Aug. 8, 2025
Background
Robin Craig Van Arsdol brought this action without a lawyer, invoking federal-question and diversity-of-citizenship jurisdiction. He alleged that Andre Pierre Charles violated his rights by making defamatory and threatening posts on social media. Van Arsdol resides in Longwood, Florida, and he alleged that Charles resides in Brooklyn, New York.
Van Arsdol initially filed a motion seeking a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order, but he did not initially file a complaint or provide a service address for Charles. The court directed him to provide that address and file a complaint. He later filed a complaint that included a Brooklyn address for Charles. The court had previously allowed him to proceed without paying the filing fee.
Venue Analysis
Federal law generally permits a civil action to be filed where a defendant resides, where a substantial part of the events or omissions occurred, or, when those options are unavailable, where a defendant is subject to the court’s personal jurisdiction. For an individual, residence for venue purposes is the district where the person is domiciled.
The court found that the complaint alleged no facts suggesting that the events giving rise to Van Arsdol’s claims occurred in the Southern District of New York. It also found that Charles allegedly resides in Brooklyn, which is in Kings County and therefore in the Eastern District of New York. The court concluded that venue was not proper in the Southern District under the applicable venue provisions.
Disposition
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1406, when a case is filed in the wrong venue, a court may dismiss it or, when the interests of justice support doing so, transfer it to a district where it could have been filed. The court transferred the action to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York because Charles allegedly resides there.
The court directed the clerk to transfer the case immediately, disregarding the usual seven-day waiting period. It left decisions on Van Arsdol’s motion for preliminary injunctive relief and motion to proceed under seal to the Eastern District. No summons was to issue from the Southern District. The order closed the case in that court and directed the clerk to terminate all pending motions. The court 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.