Howard v. Daly
- Charles Breyer
- 3:20-cv-06890
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Stanley Howard v. Mary C. Daly, Judge Claire transferred the case to Northern California because the relevant events and defendants were in San Francisco.
Stanley Howard’s case was moved from the Eastern District of California to the Northern District of California; the defendants were not otherwise ruled against in this order.
What happened
Stanley Howard v. Mary C. Daly concerns a lawsuit that the court concluded was filed in the wrong federal district. Howard was representing himself and had asked to proceed without paying the filing fee.
The court said all defendants were in San Francisco and worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Because Howard’s claims appeared to concern that system, the court found that a substantial part of the events occurred in San Francisco and transferred the case to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Magistrate Judge Allison Claire ordered the transfer under the federal venue statute. The opinion did not decide the substance of Howard’s claims or his request to proceed without paying the filing fee.
The detailed version
- Howard v. Daly · No. 3:20-cv-06890
- Charles Breyer
- Sept. 18, 2020
Background
Stanley Howard, who was proceeding without a lawyer, filed an application to proceed without paying the filing fee under 28 U.S.C. § 1915. The court described the complaint as difficult to understand but said Howard appeared to challenge the existence of the Federal Reserve Bank system. The complaint identified the defendants as employees of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Venue Analysis
The court applied the federal venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b). It stated that all defendants were located in San Francisco and that a substantial part of the claims, to the extent they occurred anywhere, occurred there. The court therefore concluded that the action should have been filed in the Northern District of California rather than the Eastern District of California.
Ruling
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. Magistrate Judge Allison Claire ordered that the matter be transferred to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The order did not resolve the merits of Howard’s claims or state a ruling on his application to proceed without paying the filing fee.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.