MEMORANDUM OPINION
JAMES
E. BOASBERG UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Plaintiff
Shawlawn Beckford served as an Army employee in South Korea
from 2009 to 2015. Believing that she had been discriminated
and retaliated against on the basis of her race and sex
during her tenure, Plaintiff brought the current action under
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Defendant Mark T.
Esper, Secretary of the Army, now moves to dismiss or, in the
alternative, transfer the case to the Eastern District of
Virginia. As Defendant is correct - and Plaintiff now
concedes - that venue in this district is improper, the Court
will grant the Motion and transfer the matter across the
Potomac River.
I.
Background
Beckford
is a black woman who worked as an Army employee at Brian
Allgood Army Community Hospital (BAACH) on the United States
Army installation in Seoul, South Korea. She served as a
civilian hospital administrator at BAACH from January 2009
through November 2015. Beckford alleges that she was
subjected to a hostile work environment based on her race and
sex and retaliated against when she complained. See
ECF No. 1 (Compl.), ¶¶ 72-87. She filed her
Complaint in this suit on April 20, 2018. She alleged that
venue was proper here because the Department of the Army has
“its principal offices located in the District of
Columbia.” Id, ¶ 8. Esper has now filed a
Motion to Dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
12(b)(3) and 12(b)(6) or, in the alternative, a Motion to
Transfer to the proper venue pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §
1406(a). Given its transfer determination, the Court need
only examine the standard under Rule 12(b)(3), not 12(b)(6).
II.
Legal Standard
“In considering a Rule 12(b)(3) motion, the court
accepts the plaintiffs well-pled factual allegations
regarding venue as true, draws all reasonable inferences from
those allegations in the plaintiffs favor, and resolves any
factual conflicts in the plaintiffs favor.”
Pendleton v. Mukasey, 552 F.Supp.2d 14, 17 (D.D.C.
2008) (quoting Darby v. U.S. Dep't of Energy,
231 F.Supp. 2d. 274, 276-77 (D.D.C. 2002)). Given that it is
a plaintiffs obligation to bring the action in an appropriate
district, she “usually bears the burden of establishing
that venue is proper.” Ellis-Smith v. Secretary of
Army, 793 F.Supp.2d 173, 175 (D.D.C. 2011) (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted); 14D Charles Alan
Wright et al., Federal Practice & Procedure
§ 3826 (4th ed. 2018) (“[W]hen the defendant has
made a proper objection, the burden is on the plaintiff to
establish that the chosen district is a proper
venue.”). “The Court, however, need not accept
the plaintiffs legal conclusions as true, and may consider
material outside the pleadings, including undisputed facts
evidenced in the record to determine whether” venue is
proper. Braun v. U.S. Dep't of the Interior, 288
F.Supp.3d 293, 298 (D.D.C. 2018) (internal quotation marks
and citation omitted). To prevail on a motion to dismiss, a
“defendant must present facts that will defeat the
plaintiffs assertion of venue.” Ellis-Smith,
793 F.Supp.2d at 175.
Venue
in Title VII cases is governed by statute. Such action may
properly be brought in (1) “any judicial district in
the State in which the unlawful employment practice is
alleged to have been committed, ” (2) “the
judicial district in which the employment records relevant to
such practice are maintained and administered, ” or (3)
“the judicial district in which the aggrieved person
would have worked but for the alleged unlawful employment
practice.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(3). Only if
venue is not found under these three prongs is Title
VII's fourth, residual prong triggered to find venue in
(4) “the judicial district in which the respondent has
his principal office.” Id. Where a plaintiff
brings suit in a jurisdiction that does not satisfy any of
the four prongs listed in 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(3),
venue is improper. Buesgens v. Coates, 435 F.Supp.2d
1, 3 (D.D.C. 2006).
In such
an event, 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a) provides that “[t]he
district court of a district in which is filed a case laying
venue in the wrong division or district shall 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.”
III.
Analysis
The
Court first explains why venue does not lie here and then
addresses whether it should transfer or dismiss the case. As
Plaintiff now concedes that the Eastern District of Virginia
is the appropriate venue for this dispute, see ECF
No. 8 (Opp.) at 6, the former analysis is brief.
A.
Venue
There
is little doubt that venue cannot be found under the first
three prongs of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(3). As to prong
one, Beckford at no point asserts that the purported unlawful
action occurred in the District of Columbia. The hostile work
environment she describes took place solely within the
confines of BAACH in South Korea. See Compl., ¶
1. As to the next prong, Beckford does not posit that any
relevant employment records are maintained and administered
in the District of Columbia. Finally, Plaintiff does not
suggest that, but for the alleged unlawful employment
practice, she would have worked in the District of Columbia.
As none
of the first three prongs applies, the Court turns to the
fourth - namely, the district in which Defendant has his
principal office. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(3)
(permitting venue “within the judicial district in
which the respondent has his principal office” only
when the defendant cannot be found in the other three
statutorily proscribed venues); see also Stebbins v.
State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 413 F.2d 1100, 1102-03
(D.C. Cir. 1969) (“Only where the putative employer
cannot be brought before the court in one of th[e] districts
[found under prongs one through three] may the action be
filed in the judicial district in which he has ‘his
principal office.'”).
Although
one might logically think that the Army's principal
office sits in Washington, that is not the case. As this
Court and others in this district have noted, that office is
located at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. E.g.,
Ellis-Smith, 793 F.Supp. 2d. at 177 (“The Secretary of
the Army's principal office is located in the Pentagon in
Arlington, Virginia.”); Saran v. Harvey, 2005
WL 1106347, at *4 (D.D.C. May 9, 2005) (holding that, because
Secretary of Army's principal office is at Pentagon,
“venue is not in the District of Columbia for
plaintiffs Title VII claim, but instead lies in the Eastern
District of Virginia”); Donnell v. ...