Hammers v. Mayea-Chang

• Decision Date: 10 December 2019
• Docket Number: CIVIL ACTION NO. 2:19-CV-00181-JRG
• Parties: ROBERT HAMMERS, Plaintiff, v. CARLOS E MAYEA-CHANG, DAYCA TRANSPORT SERVICES, INC, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Texas

ROBERT HAMMERS, Plaintiff, v. CARLOS E MAYEA-CHANG,DAYCA TRANSPORT SERVICES, INC, Defendants.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 2:19-CV-00181-JRG

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS MARSHALL DIVISION

December 10, 2019

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Before the Court is the Motion to Dismiss for Improper Venue or, in the Alternative, Motion to Transfer Venue ("the Motion") filed by Defendants Carlos Mayea-Chang ("Mayea-Chang") and Dayca Transport Services ("Dayca") (collectively, "Defendants") pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(3). (Dkt. No. 3). Having considered the Motion, and for the reasons set forth herein, the Court finds the Motion should be and hereby is DENIED.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

The instant case involves an automotive collision alleged to have occurred on Interstate 20 at an unspecified location somewhere within Smith County, Texas. (Dkt. No. 1).¹ Plaintiff Robert Hammers ("Hammers") filed the Complaint on May 21, 2019, alleging various claims of negligence arising from the collision. (Dkt. No. 1). In the Complaint, Hammers alleges that venue is proper pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b)(2). (Id. at 2 ¶ 4).

On April 16, 2019, Defendants filed the present Motion seeking dismissal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a), or, in the alternative, an intra-district transfer pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a).With respect to both bases for transfer, Defendants do not dispute that venue is proper in the Eastern District of Texas, but instead focus primarily on whether the case should have been brought in the Tyler Division rather than the Marshall Division.

II. Venue Is Proper Under 28 U.S.C. § 1391

Defendants allege that venue is improper because the appropriate judicial division is the Tyler Division rather than the Marshall Division of the Eastern District of Texas. The accident which gives rise to this case occurred in the Tyler Division. (Dkt. No. 3). As noted above, Defendants appear to concede that the Eastern District of Texas is a proper judicial district. (Id.) However, Defendants allege that the Marshall Division is improper.

Hammers responds that "Defendants have wholly failed to state any acceptable basis" for the dismissal. (Dkt. No. 5 at 5). Specifically, Hammers argues that the Marshall Division is proper for a variety of reasons, including an uncontroverted assertion that the Marshall Division is more convenient for both Hammers and Defendants.

The Court concludes that the Marshall Division is an appropriate venue under 28 U.S.C. § 1391. This issue presents a relatively straightforward question of statutory interpretation. "The task of statutory interpretation begins and, if possible, ends with the language of the statute." United States v. Lauderdale Cty., 914 F.3d 960, 964 (5th Cir. 2019). "[W]hen decoding language, judges 'must be attentive not to words standing alone but to surrounding structure and other contextual cues that illuminate meaning.'" Weaver v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 939 F.3d 618, 626 (5th Cir. 2019). "The meaning of a statutory provision 'is often clarified by the remainder of the statutory scheme . . . .'" Ramos-Portillo v. Barr, 919 F.3d 955, 960 (5th Cir. 2019) (quoting Util. Air Regulatory Grp. v. EPA, 573 U.S. 302, 321 (2014)). Thus, courts "ought to 'consider the entire text, in view of its structure and of the physical and logical relation of its many parts.'" In re Lopez,897 F.3d 663, 670 n.5 (5th Cir. 2018) (quoting Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 167 (2012)).

First and foremost, the venue statute which governs this case does not distinguish between judicial divisions, and instead is addressed to only judicial districts. See 28 U.S.C. § 1391. Specifically, § 1391 provides that a "civil action may be brought in" one of the following three locations:

(1) a judicial district in which any defendant resides, if all defendants are residents of the State in which the district is located;

(2) a judicial district in which a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim occurred, or a substantial part of property that is the subject of the action is situated; or

(3) if there is no district in which an action may otherwise be brought as provided in this section, any judicial district in which any defendant is subject to the court's personal jurisdiction with respect to such action.

Id. (emphasis added). Defendants do not dispute that this case meets the plain text of § 1391, because the Eastern District of Texas is "a judicial district in which a substantial part of the events . . . giving rise to the claim occurred." See id. § 1391(a)(2). Instead, Defendants seek to impose an additional requirement on the statutory text—a requirement related to judicial divisions—in an effort to compel transfer from the Marshall Division to the Tyler Division. Defendants' argument is both confused and misplaced.

For the past thirty years, the federal courts have uniformly held that because § 1391 "does not distinguish between the divisions of a judicial district, venue properly lies in any division" of an otherwise-appropriate judicial district.² Griffin v. Tyson Foods, Inc., No. 2:16-cv-734-JRG-RSP, 2017 WL 345926, at *2 (E.D. Tex. Jan. 24, 2017); see also, e.g., Battee v. Ben E. Keith Co., No. 2:17-cv-00161-JRG-RSP, 2017 WL 1832043, at *1 (E.D. Tex. May 5, 2017); McKee v. Grantham, No. 2:16-cv-00184-RSP, 2016 WL 3567038, at *1 (E.D. Tex. July 1, 2016); Walker v. IBEW, No. 2:15-cv-01283-JRG-RSP, 2015 WL 5783802, at *2 (E.D. Tex. Sept. 30, 2015); Monroe v. Walmart Stores Tex., LLC, No. 2:11-cv-329-JRG, 2012 WL 3887006, at *2 (E.D. Tex. Sept. 6, 2012); Johnson v. Merchant, 628 F. Supp. 2d 695, 696-97 (N.D. Miss. 2009) ("'[I]f there is no local rule, venue need be set only on a district basis, disregarding divisions." (citing Jordon v. Bowman Apple Prods. Co., 728 F. Supp. 409 (W.D. Va. 1990))); Crumrine v. NEG Micon USA, Inc., 104 F. Supp. 2d 1123, 1126 (N.D. Iowa 2000) ("Furthermore, in 1988, Congress repealed the federal statute that formerly established 'divisional venue' in civil cases in federal court, 28 U.S.C. § 1393 . . . When 28 U.S.C. § 1393 was repealed . . . the concept of divisional venue disappeared." (quoting Bishop v. C & P Trucking Co., Inc., 840 F. Supp. 118, 119 (N.D. Ala. 1993) (quotation marks omitted))).

The text of § 1391 only imposes restrictions on the judicial district in which a case may be filed; it does not impose any restriction on the division within such district where a case may be filed. See Griffin, 2017 WL 345926, at *2. The statute which previously imposed a divisional venue requirement, 28 U.S.C. § 1393, was repealed more than thirty years ago in 1988. Thus, under § 1391, a division is only improper when it falls within an improper judicial district. Id.Conversely, § 1391 permits a civil action to be filed in any division, so long as the division is within a proper judicial district. Id.

Defendants' interpretation to the contrary is improper because it would require engrafting a new divisional requirement onto the text of § 1391. Cf. Weaver, 939 F.3d at 626 ("[W]e decline to engraft what [Congress] declined to enact."). In enacting § 1391, Congress only chose to impose a district-based venue requirement, not a divisional requirement. See 28 U.S.C. § 1391. "[O]ur constitutional structure does not permit this Court to 'rewrite the statute that Congress has enacted.'" Puerto Rico v. Franklin Cal. Tax-Free Tr., 136 S. Ct. 1938, 1949 (2016) (quoting Dodd v. United States, 545 U.S. 353, 359 (2005)); see also Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer & White Sales, Inc., 139 S. Ct. 524, 528 (2019) (explaining that courts may not "rewrite" a statute for any reason, even when there may be substantial policy justifications for doing so).³

The Court's interpretation of the plain text of § 1391 is reinforced by the surrounding statutory provisions, which demonstrate that Congress understood how to include a divisional restriction on venue when it wished to do so. See Ramos-Portillo, 919 F.3d at 960 (instructing courts to look at surrounding provisions). In order to address a "change of venue" based on litigation convenience, Congress enacted a separate and distinct statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1404, which provides:

For the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice, a district court may transfer any civil action to any other district or division where it might have been brought or to any district or division to which all parties have consented.

28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) (emphasis added). By expressly distinguishing between transfer to another "district or division," Congress designed § 1404 to "apply as much to transfers between divisions of the same district as to transfers from one district to another." In re Radmax, Ltd., 720 F.3d 285, 288 (5th Cir. 2013) (emphasis added). Similarly, Congress has previously enacted a venue statute imposing precisely this divisional requirement—28 U.S.C. § 1393—which has since been repealed. See Judicial Improvements and Access to Justice Act, Pub. L. No. 100-702, § 1001, 102 Stat 4642 (1988). In contrast to these surrounding provisions, a distinction between divisions and districts is conspicuously absent from § 1391.

The presence of a divisional distinction in § 1404 and § 1393 is no less important than the absence of a divisional distinction in § 1391. See Ramos-Portillo, 919 F.3d at 960; In re Lopez, 897 F.3d at 670 n.5. "Congress has included" a divisional restriction in § 1404 and § 1393, closely-related venue provisions, "clearly demonstrating that it knows how to impose such a requirement when it wishes to do so." Whitfield v. United States, 543 U.S. 209, 216-17 (2005). "Where Congress has chosen not to do so, we will not override that choice . . . ." Id. Since Congress has chosen not to include a division-based restriction on venue in § 1391, this Court will not "engraft what [Congress] declined to enact." See Weaver, 939 F.3d at 626. Doing so would...