Price v. Ayala
- Beth Freeman
- 5:26-cv-02044
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Price v. Ayala, Judge Riordan transferred Price’s civil-rights case to the Northern District of California because venue was improper in the Eastern District.
Eugene Leon Price’s civil-rights action will proceed in the Northern District of California rather than the Eastern District of California; the order does not decide the claims against Ayala and the other defendants.
What happened
In Eugene Leon Price v. Ayala, et al., Eugene Leon Price, a state prisoner representing himself, filed a civil-rights case under a federal law allowing claims against state officials. He also asked to proceed without paying the filing fee.
The court explained that federal cases generally must be filed in a district connected to the defendants or the events in the case. Price’s claim arose in Monterey County, which is in the Northern District of California, so the case was filed in the wrong district.
Judge Riordan ordered the case transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The order did not decide the underlying civil-rights claims.
The detailed version
- Price v. Ayala · No. 5:26-cv-02044
- Beth Freeman
- Mar. 3, 2026
Background
Eugene Leon Price, a state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He also filed an application to proceed without paying the filing fee under 28 U.S.C. § 1915. The defendants are identified in the caption as Ayala and others.
Venue Analysis
Venue is the federal district where a case may properly be filed. The court quoted 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b), which generally permits a civil action to be filed where a defendant resides, where a substantial part of the relevant events occurred, or, in limited circumstances, where a defendant is subject to the court’s personal jurisdiction.
The court stated that Price’s claim arose in Monterey County. Because Monterey County is in the Northern District of California, the court concluded that the action should have been filed there rather than in the Eastern District of California.
Disposition
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a), a federal court may transfer a case filed in the wrong district when doing so serves the interests of justice. The court ordered that this matter be transferred to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The order did not resolve the merits of Price’s civil-rights claims or state that his application to proceed without paying the filing fee was granted or denied.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.