Blackwood v. Florida Child Support Disbursement Unit
- Louis Stanton
- 1:20-cv-05017
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Blackwood v. Florida Child Support Disbursement Unit, Judge Stanton transferred the case from New York to Florida without deciding its merits.
Phillip Blackwood’s case was transferred from the Southern District of New York to the Middle District of Florida. The Florida court was left to decide whether he could proceed without prepaying filing fees.
What happened
Phillip Blackwood sued the Florida Child Support Disbursement Unit, Christina Joy Butler, and the Orange County Courthouse. He was being held in the Westchester County Jail and represented himself. He claimed that events related to child-support payments and enforcement occurred in New York, but he did not identify where.
The court found that New York was not shown to be the proper location for the case. The defendants’ listed addresses were in Florida, and the claims concerned a Florida child-support order, efforts to collect payments, and suspension of Blackwood’s driver’s license for nonpayment. The court transferred the case to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Judge Louis L. Stanton ordered the Clerk of Court to transfer the action and mail Blackwood a copy of the order. Judge Stanton did not decide the underlying claims, and stated that the Florida court would decide whether Blackwood could proceed without paying filing fees. The New York court also ordered that no summons issue and that the action be closed there.
The detailed version
- Blackwood v. Florida Child Support Disbursement Unit · No. 1:20-cv-05017
- Louis Stanton
- July 1, 2020
Background
Phillip Blackwood brought a self-represented civil action against the Florida Child Support Disbursement Unit, Christina Joy Butler, and the Orange County Courthouse. The opinion states that Blackwood was being held in the Westchester County Jail. It describes his claims as arising from child support that a Florida state court ordered him to pay to Butler, efforts by the Florida Child Support Disbursement Unit to collect those payments, and suspension of his driver’s license because he failed to pay child support.
Blackwood asserted that the events underlying his claims occurred in New York, but he did not specify where. The addresses he provided for the defendants were in Apopka, Altamonte, and Orlando, Florida, in Orange or Seminole County.
Venue and Transfer
The court first discussed the general federal venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b). It concluded that venue did not appear proper in the Southern District of New York because Blackwood did not allege that the defendants resided there and did not provide enough facts to show that a substantial part of the relevant events occurred there.
The court also considered 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), which permits transfer for the convenience of the parties and witnesses and in the interest of justice. The court explained that most of the underlying events appeared to have occurred in Orange or Seminole County, Florida, both within the Middle District of Florida. Considering the circumstances as a whole, it concluded that transfer was in the interest of justice.
Disposition
The court directed the Clerk of Court to transfer the action to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida and to mail Blackwood a copy of the order. It stated that the transferee court would decide whether Blackwood could proceed without prepaying fees. The court ordered that no summons issue from the Southern District of New York and stated that the order closed the action in that court. The opinion did not decide the merits of Blackwood’s claims.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.