Abissi v. USCIS, No. 23-03176, 2024 WL 1485887 (D. Md. Apr. 5, 2024) (Bredar, C.J.)

Abissi v. USCIS, No. 23-03176, 2024 WL 1485887 (D. Md. Apr. 5, 2024) (Bredar, C.J.)

Re:  Requests for assessment of one of the individual plaintiffs

Disposition:  Granting defendant’s motion to dismiss or transfer in part; transferring case to United States District Court for the District of Columbia

• Litigation Considerations, Venue:  The court finds that “[t]he Complaint names seven Plaintiffs.”  “Only two . . . are identified as residents of Maryland.”  “Of the rest, two . . . are residents of the District of Columbia, two . . . are residents of California, and one . . . is a resident of Virginia.”  “Thus, for five out of seven plaintiffs, venue can be proper in this District only if the relevant ‘agency records are situated’ in Maryland.”  “The Court will refer to this category of venue as ‘agency records venue.’”  “The Complaint is entirely devoid of allegations as to where the relevant records are located.”  “USCIS, in turn, asserts that the relevant records are located at the USCIS National Records Center in Lee’s Summit, Missouri.”  “Plaintiffs do not dispute that the relevant records are located in Missouri.”  “Instead, they argue that ‘[t]he headquarters of the Asylum Division are in Maryland.’”  “‘The general headquarters of the agency are here.’”  “‘Certainly, some records are here.’”  “However, Plaintiffs have not cited any authority for their contention that the location of an agency’s headquarters, without more, suffices to establish agency records venue under the FOIA.”  “[T]he agency records venue inquiry turns on the location of those specific records that the plaintiff seeks to access; the fact that there may be some, unrelated agency records in this District is irrelevant.”  “Thus, the Court concludes that venue is proper in this District only as to two of the seven Plaintiffs.” “Because ‘venue must be proper as to each claim and as to each party,’ . . . the District of Maryland is therefore not a proper venue for this action.”
  
  “Plaintiffs argue in the alternative that even if venue does not properly lie in this District, the Court should nevertheless retain this case by exercising ‘pendent venue’ over the remaining five Plaintiffs.”  “Pendent venue is a discretionary, judge-made doctrine that permits a court to hear claims for which venue does not properly lie in the district when they are closely related to claims for which venue is proper.”  “The Court declines to invoke pendent venue in this case.”  “Courts are hesitant to employ pendent venue when, as here, Congress has enacted a special venue provision for the claim at issue.”
  
  “Having concluded that venue is not proper in the District of Maryland for five out of seven Plaintiffs, the Court must determine whether to dismiss those Plaintiffs from the case, or else to transfer the case to a jurisdiction where venue would properly lie.”  “With respect to the five Plaintiffs who are not resident in Maryland, the Court concludes that the appropriate course of action is to transfer venue to the District of Columbia, rather than to dismiss their claims altogether.”  “Plaintiffs appear to have had a good faith, though legally flawed, reason for bringing this lawsuit in Maryland.”  “This factors in favor of transferring the case, rather than dismissing those Plaintiffs from the action.”  “Moreover, Congress’s decision to designate the District of Columbia as an ‘all-purpose forum,’ for FOIA actions . . . also counsels in favor of transferring the case rather than dismissing it with respect to those Plaintiffs, given that venue is always proper there under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B).”  “With respect to the two Plaintiffs who are Maryland residents, the Court concludes that the interests of justice and the convenience of all parties counsels in favor of also transferring their cases to the District of Columbia.”  “When venue is proper with respect to some, but not all, parties, district courts have discretion to transfer the entire case to a proper venue.”