In re Michael David Grant
- Phyllis Hamilton
- 4:21-cv-03730
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Grant v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Judge Hamilton transferred the case to the Central District of California and vacated pending motions.
Michael David Grant, whose case was transferred to the Central District of California; the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which remained the named defendant. The order did not decide Grant’s underlying claims.
What happened
In Michael David Grant v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Grant, a state prisoner without a lawyer, said prison officials were holding a debit card containing his federal economic-impact payment. He sought release of the funds.
The court ruled that the case belonged in the Central District of California because Grant was incarcerated there and his claims involved officials there. The court transferred the case to that district rather than deciding the underlying claims.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton transferred the case under the federal venue statute and vacated Grant’s pending motions without ruling on them.
The detailed version
- In re Michael David Grant · No. 4:21-cv-03730
- Phyllis Hamilton
- July 19, 2021
Background
Michael David Grant, a state prisoner representing himself, brought a civil-rights case against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He said the Internal Revenue Service sent the prison a debit card containing his economic-impact payment under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. According to Grant, prison officials were holding his card, along with other inmates’ cards, because debit cards were not an authorized form of payment for prisoners. He sought an order requiring prison officials to provide him with the funds.
Venue
The court distinguished Grant’s claims from an earlier case in which the court held that the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service could not withhold advance refunds or credits solely because people were incarcerated. Grant’s claims concerned alleged interference by prison officials with his receipt of the payment, and involved different defendants located in the Central District of California.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b), the court concluded that venue properly lay in the Central District of California rather than the Northern District of California. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a), the court transferred the case to the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Disposition
The court transferred the case. In light of the transfer, it did not rule on Grant’s motions at Docket Nos. 1 and 4; those motions were vacated. The order did not decide the merits of Grant’s claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.