Bozic v. United States District Court, Southern District of California, No. 17-70614 (9th Cir. 2018)
Annotate this CaseBozic purchased the weight-loss supplement Lipozene in her home state of Pennsylvania. Disappointed by the product, Bozic filed a putative class action in the Southern District of California, asserting state law claims and seeking a declaratory judgment defining Lipozene purchasers’ rights under a 2005 FTC consent decree that restricts Defendants’ ability to sell weight-loss products. The Southern District, where the decree was entered and where Defendants reside, retains jurisdiction over “construction, modification, and enforcement” of that decree. Two related putative class actions were already pending in California. Defendants moved to transfer the case to the Eastern District for consolidation with one of those cases or, in the alternative, to stay the proceedings. The court held that Bozic’s action was governed by the first-to-file rule and transferred the case. The Ninth Circuit denied Bozic’s request to reverse the transfer. While the Eastern District was not a proper venue under 28 U.S.C. 1391 and 28 U.S.C 1404(a) requires that an action can be transferred only to a district where it “might have been brought,” Bozic was not entitled to mandamus relief because issuance of a writ would have no practical impact on this case in its current procedural posture, and any injury Bozic might face was purely speculative.
Court Description: Mandamus The panel denied a petition for a writ of mandamus that sought to reverse an order transferring petitioner Regina Bozic’s putative class action from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. The panel agreed with Bozic that it was clear error when the district court transferred her action to the Eastern District because venue was not proper there under the general venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1391. The panel rejected defendants’ contentions concerning venue. First, because nothing in Bozic’s complaint suggested that any event giving rise to her individual claims occurred in the Eastern District, the panel held that venue was not proper under § 1391(b)(2). The panel also held that neither 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b)(1) nor (b)(3) provided a basis for venue in the Eastern District where none of the seven defendants resided in the Eastern District and venue was proper in the Southern District. Second, concerning defendants’ contention that the first-to-file rule negated 28 U.S.C § 1404(a)’s requirement that an action could be transferred only to a district where it “might have been brought,” the panel held that the argument was foreclosed by the plain language of § 1404(a) which allowed transfer only to a district where it might have been brought, a requirement that excludes the Eastern District.
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