Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_16-cv-00699/USCOURTS-casd-3_16-cv-00699-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 42:1983pr Prisoner Civil Rights

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

KYLE AVERY,

Plaintiff,

v.

J. BEARD, et al.,

Defendants.

No. 2:15-cv-1517 KJN P

ORDER

Plaintiff is a state prisoner, proceeding without counsel. Plaintiff seeks relief pursuant to 

42 U.S.C. § 1983, and has requested leave to proceed in forma pauperis pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915. This proceeding was referred to this court by Local Rule 302 pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 

§ 636(b)(1). Plaintiff consented to proceed before the undersigned for all purposes. See 28 

U.S.C. § 636(c). 

Plaintiff claims he is Wiccan. Plaintiff alleges that defendants have created, implemented, 

or failed to revise, a policy impinging on his First Amendment rights to sanctity and symbology, 

deeply-rooted tenets of the Wiccan and Odinist religions. Plaintiff alleges the policy violates his 

constitutional rights to Free Exercise under the Establishment Clause and Equal Protection under 

the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized 

Persons Act (“RLUIPA”). Plaintiff solely seeks injunctive relief, including, inter alia, separate 

worship space for both Wiccans and Odinists, fencing, running water, lifting the ban on religious 

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symbols, allow the growth of small plants, shrubs and grass, groundskeepers, altars and storage 

lockers for each area, and, if plaintiff demonstrates that Wiccans and Odinists hold a majority 

membership over the Jewish practitioners, the pagans be provided paid pagan chaplains. 

However, at the time plaintiff filed the instant action, he was also pursuing another civil 

rights action in the Southern District of California. Avery v. Paramo, 3:13-cv-02261 BTM DHB 

(S.D. Cal.). In the Southern District’s screening order, the court identified plaintiff’s claims as 

follows:

Plaintiff, who describes himself as a Pagan-Wiccan, seeks monetary 

damages against various California Department of Corrections and 

Rehabilitation (“CDCR”) and RJD officials, based on alleged 

violations of his First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment 

rights to free exercise of religion, equal protection, and to be free of 

retaliation. Plaintiff further seeks injunctive relief under the 

Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”). 

See Compl. (ECF Doc. No. 1) at 27, 42-59. Specifically, Plaintiff 

claims Defendants have denied him various religious 

accommodations, including a fence-line, fresh herbs, and running 

water for use in and around ceremonial cites, as well as a diet 

sufficient to permit fasting rituals, which he contends are provided 

to inmates of other faiths. Id. at 28-41. Plaintiff further claims 

Defendants have retaliated against him for his advocacy and use of 

the administrative grievance process to protect his rights. Id. at 48-

50, 59-64.

Paramo, 3:13-cv-02261 BTM DHB (ECF No. 9 at 2). The court found that plaintiff stated 

cognizable claims as to his free exercise, equal protection, retaliation and RLUIPA allegations, 

and ordered service of process on the defendants. Id. at 5. Subsequently, plaintiff’s retaliation 

claims were dismissed based on his failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Paramo, 3:13-cv02261 BTM DHB (ECF No. 40 at 2). 

The following defendants are named in both the Southern District case and the Eastern 

District case: Jeffrey Beard, Kathleen L. Dickinson, Kathleen Allison, and M.D. Stainer, and 

those defendants filed an answer in the Southern District case on December 1, 2015. Id. (ECF 

No. 58). A mandatory settlement conference is set for September 7, 2016, at 10:00 a.m., before 

Magistrate Judge David H. Bartick in San Diego, California. Id., (ECF No. 49).

Plaintiff is housed at R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility, located within the jurisdiction of 

the Southern District of California. In addition, plaintiff claims that the worship grounds 

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constructed pursuant to the policy he now challenges were constructed due to his litigation in the 

San Diego County Superior Court, Case No. HSC 11337. (ECF No. 1 at 17.) 

The federal venue statute provides that 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 action, any judicial district in which any defendant is subject to the court’s personal 

jurisdiction with respect to such action.” 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b). 

In this case, most of the defendants are located in Sacramento.1 It is unclear where the 

policy was created, but it was likely created in Sacramento at the headquarters of the CDCR. 

However, the policy was implemented in San Diego at the prison where plaintiff is housed, which 

is in the Southern District of California. Moreover, plaintiff is pursuing litigation in the Southern 

District which appears to overlap with some of the claims raised in this action, specifically, 

plaintiff’s claim under RLUIPA, and plaintiff’s equal protection claim challenging the lack of 

policy to protect “pagan equal protections” . . . “as they do in regards to Native American[s].” 

Paramo, 3:13-cv-02261 BTM DHB (ECF No. 1 at 23). Plaintiff also argues that Native 

Americans are provided separate worship space and that the Wiccans and Asatru following is 

large enough to compare to at least one or more of the majority religions sanctioned by CDCR. 

Id., ECF No. 1 at 31. Thus, there is a risk of disparate outcomes should this case proceed in the 

Eastern District. Moreover, the judges2assigned to plaintiff’s civil rights action, 3:13-cv-02261 

BTM DHB, proceeding in the Southern District, may be inclined to relate the instant case to the 

Southern District case in the interest of judicial economy and to avoid disparate outcomes, or to 

require plaintiff to amend his pleading to include all of his related claims in one pleading. 

 

1

 Plaintiff does not identify the locations of all of the named defendants.

2

 Although plaintiff consented to the jurisdiction of the magistrate judge, it appears that his case 

was automatically assigned a district judge and a magistrate judge. Paramo, 3:13-cv-02261 BTM 

DHB (ECF No. 1 at 7).

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Therefore, in the interest of justice, the undersigned transfers this action to the Southern 

District of California. See 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a); Starnes v. McGuire, 512 F.2d 918, 932 (D.C. Cir. 

1974).

Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that this matter is transferred to the United 

States District Court for the Southern District of California.

Dated: March 23, 2016

/aver1517.tf

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