FOR PUBLICATION
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
DIVISION OF ST. THOMAS & ST. JOHN
 
ZYANGQUELYN POE 
Plaintiff,
v.
BUDGET RENT-A-CAR SYSTEM,
INC., a/k/a CENDANT RENTAL
GROUP, and INTERNATIONAL
RENTAL AND LEASING CORP d/b/a/
BUDGET RENT-A-CAR, St. Thomas,
U.S. Virgin Islands,
Defendants.
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Civil No. 2006-128
ATTORNEYS:
Douglas Inman, Esq.
St. Croix, V.I. 
For the plaintiff.
Michael J Sanford, Esq.
St. Croix, U.S.V.I.
For the defendants.
ORDER
GÓMEZ, C.J.
Before the Court is the motion of the plaintiff Zyangquelyn
Poe (“Poe”) to retransfer this matter to the United States
District Court for the District of Maryland.  For the reasons
stated below, the Court will deny the motion.
I.  FACTS
On April 20, 2002, Franklin Barnabas rented a 2000 Mercury
Villager (the “mini-van”) from Budget Rent-a-Car System, Inc.,
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Poe v. Budget Rent-a-Car System, Inc., a/k/a/ Cendant Rental Group, et al.
Civil No. 2006-128
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Page 2
1  The other passengers subsequently commenced an action
against Budget in this Court raising general allegations of
liability, breach of contract, and loss of consortium. 
a/k/a/ Cendant Rental Group (“Budget”) and International Rental
and Leasing Corp, d/b/a/ Budget Rent-a-Car, St. Thomas, U.S.
Virgin Islands (“International”).  On April 21, 2002,  Barnabas’
sister-in-law, Diane Dewindt, was driving the mini-van.  While
descending Raphune Hill, Dewindt tried, without success, to apply
the brakes.  Dewindt then steered the mini-van off of the main
road and into an up-hill driveway where the mini-van collided
with a tree.  There were a total of five passengers in the mini-
van at the time of the accident, including Poe.1
On April 19, 2005, Poe filed a complaint against Budget in
the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.
Poe alleges that the brake system in the mini-van was the direct
and proximate cause of the accident.  The complaint raises claims
of product liability, breach of contract, and breach of warranty.
Budget moved the Maryland court to dismiss for lack of
personal jurisdiction.  On July 31, 2006, the Maryland court
entered an order stating that
[T]his case is TRANSFERRED to the . . . District Court . . .
of the Virgin Islands pursuant to the provisions of 28
U.S.C. § 1631, the Court concluding that it lacks personal
jurisdiction of the Defendant, International Rental and
Leasing Corporation, but that the . . . District Court . . .
of the Virgin Islands has jurisdiction over all Defendants 
. . . .
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Poe v. Budget Rent-a-Car System, Inc., a/k/a/ Cendant Rental Group, et al.
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Page 3
2  Section 1631 provides:
Whenever a civil action is filed in a court as defined in
section 610 of this title or an appeal, including a petition
for review of administrative action, is noticed for or filed
with such a court and that court finds that there is a want
of jurisdiction, the court shall, if it is in the interest
of justice, transfer such action or appeal to any other such
court in which the action or appeal could have been brought
at the time it was filed or noticed, and the action or
appeal shall proceed as if it had been filed in or noticed
for the court to which it is transferred on the date upon
which it was actually filed in or noticed for the court from
which it is transferred.
28 U.S.C. § 1631 (1982).
(Order 1, July 31, 2006.)  That order also denied the motion to
dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction as moot.
Poe thereafter filed a motion for reconsideration.  The
Maryland court denied Poe’s motion for reconsideration, reasoning
that “it lack[ed] jurisdiction because this case has already been
transferred to and received by the . . . District Court . . . of
the Virgin Islands . . . .” (Order 1, Aug. 14, 2006.)
Now, Poe moves to retransfer this case to the United States
District Court for the District of Maryland.
II.  ANALYSIS
Poe claims that this case should be re-transferred back to 
the United States District Court for the District of Maryland
because she believes that court inadvertently cited to 28 U.S.C.
§ 1631 (“Section 1631")2 as authority for transferring the case
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Page 4
3  Section 1404 provides:
(a) For the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the
interest of justice, a district court may transfer any civil
action to any other district or division where it might have
been brought.
(b) Upon motion, consent or stipulation of all parties, any
action, suit or proceeding of a civil nature or any motion
or hearing thereof, may be transferred, in the discretion of
the court, from the division in which pending to any other
division in the same district. Transfer of proceedings in
rem brought by or on behalf of the United States may be
transferred under this section without the consent of the
United States where all other parties request transfer.
(c) A district court may order any civil action to be tried
at any place within the division in which it is pending.
(d) As used in this section, the term “district court”
includes the District Court of Guam, the District Court for
the Northern Mariana Islands, and the District Court of the
Virgin Islands, and the term “district” includes the
territorial jurisdiction of each such court.
28 U.S.C. § 1404 (1996).
to this Court in the first instance.  In Poe’s view, re-transfer
is appropriate to allow the Maryland court to amend its order to
state that the matter was transferred pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §
1404 (“Section 1404")3 instead of Section 1631.
However, Poe has not offered, nor is this Court aware of,
any reason to suspect that the reference in the transfer order to
Section 1631 was inadvertent.  In fact, the Maryland court cited
to Section 1631 as authority for its decision repeatedly in both
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Poe v. Budget Rent-a-Car System, Inc., a/k/a/ Cendant Rental Group, et al.
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Page 5
its memorandum opinion and order transferring the case to this
Court.
Additionally, Poe has failed to present any valid basis for
transferring this matter.  Poe does not argue that this case
should be heard in the District of Maryland as opposed to this
District.  She does not claim that Maryland is a more convenient
location for the parties or the witnesses.  Nor does she assert
that venue is inappropriate in this District, or that this Court
lacks jurisdiction over the matter or any party.  Rather, Poe
presumes that if this case were re-transferred to the District of
Maryland, that court would enter an amended order transferring
the case to this Court under Section 1404 instead of Section
1631.  However, neither Section 1631, Section 1404, nor any other
authority allows a transfer on such grounds.
Moreover, Poe’s argument that she would benefit from the
application of Maryland law to this case if the transfer were
made pursuant to Section 1404 instead of Section 1631 is
misguided.  Poe contends that if the transfer were made pursuant
to Section 1404, then her claims would be governed by the statute
of limitations of Maryland rather than the Virgin Islands.  
In Ferens v. John Deere Co., 494 U.S. 516, 110 S.Ct. 1274,
108 L.Ed.2d 443 (1990), the plaintiff was injured in
Pennsylvania, which had a two-year statute of limitations on tort
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actions.  Three years after the accident, the plaintiff filed a
breach of contract and warranty action in the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania, and also filed a tort action based on the same
conduct in the Southern District of Mississippi, which had a six-
year statute of limitations on tort actions.  Shortly thereafter,
the plaintiff moved to transfer the Mississippi tort case to
Pennsylvania.  That motion was granted.  Once the matter was
transferred, the tort case was consolidated with the breach of
contract and warranty matter.  As to which statute of limitations
to apply, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the United
States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that the law
of the transferor jurisdiction did not apply because the transfer
had been requested by the plaintiff rather than the defendant.  
The Supreme Court of the United States reversed, holding
that regardless of which party initiated the transfer, the
transferee court should apply the law of the transferor
jurisdiction. Id. at 528-29.  Significantly, the Court emphasized
that applying Mississippi law in that case would not create
increased opportunity for forum shopping:
The Ferenses, for example, had an opportunity for forum
shopping in the state courts because both the Mississippi
and Pennsylvania courts had jurisdiction and because they
each would have applied a different statute of limitations.
Diversity jurisdiction did not eliminate these forum
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Poe v. Budget Rent-a-Car System, Inc., a/k/a/ Cendant Rental Group, et al.
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4  See Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817,
82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938). 
shopping opportunities; instead, under Erie,4 the federal
courts had to replicate them.  Applying the transferor law
would not give a plaintiff an opportunity to use a transfer
to obtain a law that he could not obtain through his initial
forum selection.  If it does make selection of the most
favorable law more convenient, it does no more than
recognize a forum shopping choice that already exists.
Id. at 527-28.
This case is clearly distinguishable from Ferens because the
District of Maryland has held that it lacks personal jurisdiction
over International.  In cases like this where the transferor
court lacks jurisdiction over a party, the principle outlined in
Ferens would do more than merely replicate forum shopping
opportunities that already existed.  Indeed, the District of New
Jersey has held that “Ferens is inapposite in cases where the
prospective transferor court has no personal jurisdiction.”
McTyre v. Broward General Medical Center, 749 F. Supp. 102, 109
(D.N.J. 1990).  As the court explained, requiring the transferee
court to apply the law of the transferor jurisdiction under these
circumstances
would actually increase the plaintiff's state law advantage,
create and multiply opportunities for forum shopping, and
finally, cause decisions to transfer venue under [S]ection
1404(a) to turn on prejudice resulting from a change of law,
rather than on considerations of convenience and the
interest of justice.  Under Ferens, although an opportunity
for forum shopping exists, plaintiffs are at least limited
in shopping for forums in which jurisdiction can be
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Poe v. Budget Rent-a-Car System, Inc., a/k/a/ Cendant Rental Group, et al.
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Order
Page 8
exercised over the defendant. . . .  Ferens cannot be read
to allow plaintiffs to bootstrap an otherwise defeated claim
by selecting the most favorable law from any of the fifty
states and transfer it to a federal court in which
jurisdiction can be maintained.  Unlike the result in
Ferens, a plaintiff would be able to maintain an action in
federal court which could not be maintained in any state
court.  Such a result would transcend the purposes
underlying the federal transfer statutes, the Erie doctrine
and Ferens. 
Id. at 108.
III.  CONCLUSION 
For the foregoing reasons, it is hereby
ORDERED that Poe’s motion to re-transfer this matter to the
United States District Court for the District of Maryland is
DENIED.
S\                             
       CURTIS V. GÓMEZ
      
        Chief Judge
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