Smith v. Prison Officials
- Yvonne Rogers
- 4:20-cv-03233
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 1
In Smith v. Prison Officials, Judge Rogers transferred the action to California’s Central District because venue belonged there.
Lawrence Carlton Smith’s action was moved from the Northern District of California to the Western Division of the Central District of California; the order did not decide his claims against the prison officials.
What happened
In In re Lawrence Carlton Smith, the court treated Smith’s filings as a possible civil-rights case against prison officials at California State Prison—Los Angeles County. The court noted that the prison is in the Western Division of the Central District of California and that the officials appeared to reside there.
The court concluded that the case belonged in that district rather than the Northern District of California. It transferred the action to the Western Division of the Central District of California and terminated the remaining motions on its docket because they were no longer pending there.
Judge Yvonne Rogers issued the August 10, 2020 order under the federal venue-transfer statute. The order transferred the case without deciding the underlying civil-rights claims.
The detailed version
- Smith v. Prison Officials · No. 4:20-cv-03233
- Yvonne Rogers
- Aug. 10, 2020
Background
The court said the action had been opened as a civil-rights case after Lawrence Carlton Smith filed a letter on May 12, 2020. Smith later filed additional documents, and the court understood him to be indicating that he wanted to bring a civil-rights action against prison officials at California State Prison—Los Angeles County. The court stated that the prison is located in the Western Division of the Central District of California and that the defendants appeared to reside there.
Venue and transfer
The court determined that venue—the proper federal court location for the case—lay in the Central District of California rather than the Northern District of California. Citing 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b), the court found that transfer was appropriate under 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a), which permits transfer in the interest of justice when a case is filed in the wrong venue.
Ruling
The court transferred the action to the Western Division of the United States District Court for the Central District of California and directed the clerk to transfer the case immediately. It also terminated all remaining motions on its docket because they were no longer pending in the Northern District of California. The court did not decide the merits of Smith’s proposed civil-rights claims. Judge Yvonne Rogers signed the order.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.