Thomas v. Cusaj D. Thomas
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-07755
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Claudette M. Thomas v. Cusaj D. Thomas, Judge Swain transferred the case to New Jersey because venue was improper in New York.
Claudette M. Thomas’s case was transferred from the Southern District of New York to the District of New Jersey. The New Jersey court will decide her request to stop the sale of the house; the opinion does not decide that request’s merits.
What happened
Claudette M. Thomas v. Cusaj D. Thomas; Evans C. Anyanwu involves a self-represented plaintiff seeking to stop the sale of her house in Newark, New Jersey. She sued two attorneys and asked for an order temporarily blocking the sale.
The court found that the Southern District of New York was not a proper venue because the complaint did not show that both defendants lived there or that the relevant events occurred there. Venue was proper in the District of New Jersey because the property is located there.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain transferred the case immediately to the District of New Jersey. The New Jersey court will decide the request to temporarily block the sale; the New York court closed the case there, terminated pending motions, and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
The detailed version
- Thomas v. Cusaj D. Thomas · No. 1:25-cv-07755
- Laura Swain
- Sept. 19, 2025
Background
Claudette M. Thomas filed this self-represented action in the Southern District of New York under diversity-of-citizenship jurisdiction. She seeks to stop the sale of her house, which is located in Newark, New Jersey. The defendants are Cusaj D. Thomas, whom the opinion identifies as an attorney in Massachusetts, and Evans C. Anyanwu, whom the opinion identifies as Thomas’s attorney who works—and possibly resides—in Newark, New Jersey. Thomas also filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, meaning a request for temporary court-ordered relief while the case is pending.
Venue analysis
The court applied 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b), which identifies the federal districts where a civil case may be filed. The court concluded that the complaint did not allege facts showing that both defendants resided in the Southern District of New York or that a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claims occurred there. The court therefore found that venue was improper in that district.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a), when a case is filed in the wrong venue, the court may dismiss it or, in the interest of justice, transfer it to a district where it could have been filed. Because the house that is the subject of the action is located in New Jersey, the court determined that venue was proper in the District of New Jersey.
Ruling
Judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered the Clerk of Court to transfer the action to the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Because Thomas requested preliminary injunctive relief, the court directed that the transfer occur immediately rather than after the usual seven-day waiting period. The court left the preliminary-injunction motion for the transferee court to decide. It also directed that no summons issue from the Southern District of New York, closed the case in that court, and terminated all pending motions there. The court certified that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.