United States District Court, D. Maine
ORDER ON IN REM DEFENDANT M/V ALMOST THERE'S
MOTION TO DISMISS OR TRANSFER VENUE
LANCE
E. WALKER, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.
Now
before me is Vessel-Owner 15 Year Plan, LLC, appearing
specially on behalf of the Defendant Vessel M/V Almost
There's motion to dismiss or transfer venue of this case
from the District of Maine to the Southern District of
Florida (ECF No. 16). For the reasons that follow, I will
GRANT the motion.
BACKGROUND
On
August 27, 2019 Plaintiff IK Yacht Design Inc. filed an
in rem action in this Court for unsatisfied
admiralty and maritime liens against the M/V Almost There
(O.N. 1252895) (HIN: HATDH521A898) for debts in excess of
$194, 272.89, plus ongoing interest and penalties. The Almost
There is a 74-foot Hatteras Motor Yacht built in 1998, and
owned by 15 Year Plan, LLC, a Florida limited liability
company owned, in turn, by Florida residents Andrew and
Sherry Sturner.
At
bottom, this is a garden-variety contract dispute arising out
of work IK Yacht Design performed for the Sturners on the
Almost There between January 1 and June 20, 2019. Without
having settled the dispute, the Sturners sailed the Almost
There to Maine this August. Plaintiff then located the Vessel
in this District and arrested her to foreclose the
necessaries lien in accordance with the Supplemental Rules
for in rem actions and the Commercial Instruments and
Maritime Liens Act, 46 U.S.C. §§ 31431-31433 (the
“Lien Act”); see also F.R.Civ.P. 9(h),
and Rule C of the Supplemental Rules for Certain Admiralty
and Maritime Claims.
LEGAL
STANDARD
Under
28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), a district court may “[f]or
the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of
justice ... transfer any civil action to any other district
or division where it might have been brought.” This
statute “is intended to place discretion in the
district court to adjudicate motions for transfer according
to an ‘individualized, case-by-case consideration of
convenience and fairness.'” Stewart Org., Inc.
v. Ricoh Corp., 487 U.S. 22, 29 (1988) (quoting Van
Dusen v. Barrack, 376 U.S. 612, 622 (1964)). In the
exercise of that discretion, courts in the First Circuit
consider not only “the convenience of parties and
witnesses, ” but also “the availability of
documents; the possibility of consolidation; and the order in
which the district court obtained jurisdiction.”
Coady v. Ashcraft & Gerel, 223 F.3d 1, 11 (1st
Cir. 2000).
“The
burden of proof rests with the party seeking transfer”
and, ordinarily, “there is a strong presumption in
favor of the plaintiff's choice of forum.”
Id. “The evidence presented by Defendant must
weigh heavily in favor of transfer before this Court will
disturb” that choice. Demont & Assocs. v.
Berry, 77 F.Supp.2d 171, 173 (D. Me. 1999); see also
Mercier v. Sheraton Intern., Inc., 981 F.2d 1345, 1354
(1st Cir. 1992) (noting that “the trial court must
favor the plaintiff's choice of forum: unless the balance
is strongly in favor of the defendant, the plaintiff's
choice of forum should rarely be disturbed”).
ANALYSIS
1.
In Rem Jurisdiction Under § 1404
Because
this is an in rem action brought in admiralty, I
will pause briefly to discuss how that affects the
parties' arguments concerning transfer.
Before
considering whether to transfer this case, I must be certain
that the transferee district would have jurisdiction to hear
it. The federal change-of-venue statute allows district
courts to transfer a case only “to any other district
or division where it might have been brought.”
28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) (emphasis added). Plaintiff argues
the case could not “have been brought” in the
Southern District of Florida because the vessel would have to
be present in that District for the court to have
jurisdiction. See, e.g., Rule C(2)(c), Supplemental
Rules for Certain Admiralty and Maritime Claims (describing
that the in rem complaint must “state that the
property is within the district or will be within the
district while the action is pending.”). This is true
so far as it goes, but does not necessarily mean transfer is
inappropriate under § 1404.
Generally
speaking, a maritime lien may be enforced only through an
action in rem-that is, by proceeding against the
vessel itself. See, e.g., 8-VII Joshua S. Force
& Steven F. Friedell, Benedict on Admiralty § 7.01
(2017) (“Maritime liens do not exist apart from their
ability to be enforced in rem in admiralty.”);
The Rock Island Bridge, 73 U.S. (6 Wall.) 213, 215
(1867) (“The lien and the proceeding in rem
are, therefore, correlative- where one exists, the other may
be taken, and not otherwise.”). As Defendants indicate,
“[a]n action in rem ... [t]o enforce [a]
maritime lien” requires court officials to
“arrest ... the vessel or other property that is the
subject of the action.” Fed.R.Civ.P. Supp. Adm. R. C
(1)(a), (3)(a)(i). The question here is whether transfer is
appropriate even though Plaintiff may not have been able to
bring this in rem action to exercise its lien in the
Southern District of Florida in the first place.
The
Supreme Court has resolved this issue. In Continental
Grain Co. v. The FBL-585, the Court upheld transfer of
an in rem action from one district to another under
§ 1404(a) even though the in rem action could not
“have been brought” initially in the transferee
District, as the vessel was not located there when the
plaintiff filed suit. 364 U.S. 19, 20-21, 26-27 (1960). The
Court emphasized that making physical presence of the
res an absolute jurisdictional requirement would
merely have “provide[d] a shelter for in rem
admiralty proceedings in costly and inconvenient
forums.” Id. at 27. The Court has made clear
that “[t]he fictions of in rem forfeiture were
developed primarily to expand the reach of the courts and to
furnish remedies for aggrieved parties.” Republic
Nat'l Bank of Miami v. United States, 506 U.S. 80,
87 (1992). One “purpose[] of the fiction, among others,
has been to allow actions against ships where a person owning
the ship could not be reached.” Continental
Grain, 364 U.S. at 23. Here, as in Continental
Grain, “the fiction appears to have no relevance
whatever in a District Court's determination of where a
case can ...