Macon v. Minnesota, State of et al

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WO
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA
Brandon D Macon,
Plaintiff,
v.
State of Minnesota, et al.,
Defendants.
No. CV-25-04540-PHX-MTL
ORDER
Upon the Court’s sua sponte review of Plaintiff Brandon Macon’s complaint, the
Court dismisses the State of Minnesota and the Minnesota Department of Human Services
for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and transfers this action to the District of Minnesota.
I. SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION
The Court must dismiss two of the three defendants Plaintiff named in his complaint
for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
The Court is obligated to satisfy itself that it has subject matter jurisdiction. See
Valdez v. Allstate Ins. Co., 372 F.3d 1115, 1116 (9th Cir. 2004). “Sovereign immunity limits
a federal court’s subject matter jurisdiction over actions brought against a sovereign.”
Alvarado v. Table Mountain Rancheria, 509 F.3d 1008, 1015 (9th Cir. 2007); see also
United States v. Nye County, 178 F.3d 1080, 1089 n.12 (9th Cir. 1999) (stating that
“sovereign immunity is a question of subject matter jurisdiction”).
Here, Plaintiff named as defendants the State of Minnesota, the Minnesota
Department of Human Services, and the Hennepin County Child Support Office. (Doc. 1 at
Case 2:25-cv-04540-MTL Document 6 Filed 02/11/26 Page 1 of 5

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1.) The first two defendants are a State and one of its agencies, which are generally1 entitled
to sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment of the United States Constitution
and may not be sued in federal court without a waiver of sovereign immunity, including for
civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See Bd. of Trs. of the Univ. of Ala. v. Garrett,
531 U.S. 356, 363 (2001) (“The ultimate guarantee of the Eleventh Amendment is that
nonconsenting States may not be sued by private individuals in federal court.”); In re
Pegasus Gold Corp., 394 F.3d 1189, 1195 (9th Cir. 2005) (“[A]gencies of the state are
immune from private damage actions or suits for injunctive relief brought in federal court.”
(citation omitted)); Pittman v. Oregon, Emp. Dep’t, 509 F.3d 1065, 1071 (9th Cir. 2007)
(“Applying . . . principles of sovereign immunity to cases under § 1983 . . . , courts have
held that states enjoy sovereign immunity from suits brought under [the] statute[].”);
Gilbreath v. Cutter Biological, Inc., 931 F.2d 1320, 1327 (9th Cir. 1991) (holding that “arms
of the State” are not “persons” that may be sued under § 1983); see also Gardner v.
Minnesota, No. 16-cv-03999-JNE-KMM, 2019 WL 1084714, at *4 (D. Minn. Jan. 15,
2019) (holding that Minnesota and the Department of Human Services were “entitled to
sovereign immunity,” as Minnesota had “not explicitly consented to suit in federal court”),
report and recommendation adopted, 2019 WL 1086338 (D. Minn. Mar. 7, 2019).2
The Hennepin County Child Support Office appears to be an agency within a local
or municipal government, however, so it is not entitled to sovereign immunity. See, e.g.,
Pittman, 509 F.3d at 1071 (“Municipalities . . . are not entitled to sovereign immunity in
federal court.”). The Court therefore has subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s claims
against that entity. It is unclear, however, whether this is a jural entity that has the capacity
to be sued. But because the Court will transfer Plaintiff’s claims against this defendant to
1 The “Eleventh Amendment permits suits for prospective injunctive relief against state
officials acting in violation of federal law,” Frew ex rel. Frew v. Hawkins, 540 U.S. 431,
437 (2004), but Plaintiff does not request injunctive relief against Minnesota or the
Department of Human Services (see generally Doc. 1).
2 Construing the complaint liberally, see Hebbe v. Pliler, 627 F.3d 338, 342 (9th Cir. 2010),
Plaintiff’s claims of constitutional violations under the Fourteenth Amendment must
necessarily fall under § 1983, see Azul-Pacifico, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, 973 F.2d 704,
705 (9th Cir. 2002) (stating that a “litigant complaining of a violation of a constitutional
right must utilize 42 U.S.C. § 1983”).
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the District of Minnesota, as explained below, the Court need not address this issue.
II. VENUE
Although the Court was required to consider subject matter jurisdiction before
assessing venue, see Bookout v. Beck, 354 F.2d 823, 825 (9th Cir. 1965) (“[J]urisdiction
must be first found over the subject matter and the person before one reaches venue.”),
upon review of the complaint, the Court also determines that venue is not proper in this
District, and the remaining claims over which the Court does have subject matter
jurisdiction must be transferred to the District of Minnesota.
The Court may raise the issue of venue when the defendants have not yet filed a
responsive pleading and the time for doing so has not yet run. See Costlow v. Weeks, 790
F.2d 1486, 1488 (9th Cir. 1986). Under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b), a civil action may be brought
in:
(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.
The remaining defendant is an office within Hennepin County, which is in
Minnesota. See BlueLinx Corp. v. Constr., Bldg. Material, Ice & Coal Helpers & Inside
Emps. Union Loc. No. 120, Civil No. 18-2322 (DWF/KMM), 2019 WL 1923114, at *1 n.1
(D. Minn. Apr. 30, 2019). As for Plaintiff’s claims, he alleges that this agency “failed to
identify or protect him, despite clear signs he was a vulnerable minor” when he was a
homeless teenager in Minnesota. (Doc. 1 at 2.) He also alleges that the defendant
“maintains false or inaccurate records and refuses to correct them”; these records were
presumably created and maintained in Hennepin County, Minnesota. (Id. at 3.) Although
Plaintiff also alleges he “suffered a serious stroke that left him medically incapacitated” at
an unstated time, a fair inference from these allegations are that this occurred in Minnesota,
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as he alleges that during this time, the defendant “relied on,” among other things, “outdated
records” and “imposed obligations without verification, without investigation, and without
due process.” (Id.) It is implausible that a county office in Minnesota would take
affirmative actions over a person who no longer resides in the state and has not resided
there for almost two decades. (Compare id. at 2, with Doc. 3 at 5.) Even if that were true,
however, it is implausible that the municipal defendant would have taken any of its actions
in Arizona, as opposed to Minnesota. Because it is Plaintiff’s burden to establish venue is
proper in this District, these conclusory and implausible allegations are insufficient to
establish that the defendant’s actions took place outside of Minnesota. See Nissan Motor
Co. v. Nissan Comput. Corp., 89 F. Supp. 2d 1154, 1161 (C.D. Cal. 2000) (“[M]ost courts
hold that the plaintiff bears the burden of establishing proper venue.”).
Indeed, Plaintiff alleges that venue is proper in this District only because he resides
here and “continues to suffer ongoing injury and consequences from [the defendant’s]
actions in this District,” implying that the alleged actions took place in Minnesota but the
consequences have been felt in Arizona. (Doc. 1 at 2.) That Plaintiff feels the effects of the
actions in Arizona is not enough to make venue proper in this District, however. See Knuttel
v. Omaze, Inc., 572 F. Supp. 3d 866, 870 (N.D. Cal. 2021) (noting that the “venue inquiry
focuses on the defendant’s activities, not the plaintiff’s” and that there “is a tendency to
conclude that suffering . . . harm within a district is not by itself sufficient to warrant
transactional venue there,” as “[o]therwise, venue almost always would be proper at the
place of the plaintiff’s residence, an option that Congress abolished in the general venue
statute” (citations and quotation marks omitted)); Mach 1 Air Servs. Inc. v. Bustillos, No.
CV-12-02617-PHX-GMS, 2013 WL 1222567, at *10 (D. Ariz. Mar. 25, 2013) (“Merely
being the situs of plaintiff’s injury is insufficient—otherwise venue would always be
proper in a plaintiff’s district because the impact of the injury will almost always be
there.”). Accordingly, venue is improper in this District. See Costlow, 790 F.2d at 1488
(affirming an improper venue determination where, although plaintiffs argued their claim
arose in Washington, “virtually all of the activity providing the basis of the complaint took
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place in Alaska”).
When venue has been laid in the wrong district, the Court must “dismiss, or if it be
in the interest of justice, transfer such case to any district or division in which it could have
been brought.” 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a). Whether to dismiss or transfer the case is within the
Court’s discretion. Cook v. Fox, 537 F.2d 370, 371 (9th Cir. 1976) (per curiam).
For the reasons explained above, the events giving rise to Plaintiff’s claims occurred
in Minnesota and the sole remaining defendant is a Hennepin County office. (See generally
Doc. 1.) Thus, this action could have been brought in the United States District Court for
the District of Minnesota, Fourth Division. See 28 U.S.C. § 103(4). The Court finds a
transfer to that District is in the interest of justice.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED dismissing Plaintiff’s claims against Minnesota
and the Minnesota Department of Human Services without prejudice for lack of subject
matter jurisdiction.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Clerk of Court is directed to terminate
Minnesota and the Minnesota Department of Human Services as defendants.
IT IS FINALLY ORDERED that the Clerk of Court must transfer this action to
the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, Fourth Division pursuant to
28 U.S.C. § 1406(a). The Clerk of Court must close this case.
Dated this 10th day of February, 2026.
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