Ji v. Aily Foot Relax Station Inc

Background

Yong Biao Ji brought this Fair Labor Standards Act case against Aily Foot Relax Station, Inc., doing business as Foot Relax Spa Station; Linda Foot Relax Spa Station, Inc., doing business as Foot Relax Spa Station; Xiang Man Zhang, also known as Ailing Zhang; and Ke Xue Zheng. The opinion describes the case as involving alleged failures to pay minimum wages and overtime. Ji had worked as a masseuse at defendants’ Yonkers, New York, and Parsippany, New Jersey, locations.

On July 11, 2022, defendants moved under 28 U.S.C. § 1404 to transfer the action from the White Plains courthouse to the Manhattan courthouse, both within the Southern District of New York.

Court’s Analysis

The court held that the request was improper under Section 1404(a). That provision allows transfer to another district or division where the case could have been brought or to which all parties have consented. The Southern District of New York has only one division, and both courthouses are within that division. The court also stated that, under Rule 18(a) of the district’s Rules for the Division of Business Among District Judges, the case could not have been assigned to the Manhattan courthouse. For those reasons, the request under Section 1404(a) had to be denied.

The court reached the same conclusion regarding Section 1404(b), which allows transfers from the division where a case is pending to another division in the same district. Because there is only one division in the district, that provision did not authorize the requested transfer.

The court also considered Section 1404(c), which allows a district court to order a civil action tried at any place within the division where it is pending. The relevant factors included the plaintiff’s choice of forum, witness convenience, the location of documents and other evidence, the parties’ convenience, where the events occurred, the ability to compel unwilling witnesses to attend, and the parties’ relative financial means. The court said Ji’s choice of forum was presumptively entitled to substantial deference.

Defendants argued that Ji, the defendants, and most witnesses were located in Queens County. But the court noted that defendants were located in Yonkers and Parsippany and that defendants had not identified any witnesses in Queens County. The only potential Queens County witness known to the court was Ji, who opposed the transfer. The court also stated that the convenience of defendants’ lawyer was not a relevant factor. Because the alleged wage violations and much of the evidence concerned Ji’s employment in Yonkers and New Jersey, and because traveling from Queens to White Plains was not shown to be significantly more difficult or expensive than traveling to Manhattan, the court found that convenience and fairness weighed against transfer.

Ruling

Judge Vincent L. Briccetti denied defendants’ motion. The Clerk was instructed to terminate the motion, docketed as Document 133. The opinion did not transfer the case from the White Plains courthouse to the Manhattan courthouse.