Meeks v. McClung

• Decision Date: 09 September 2021
• Docket Number: Civil Action 2:20-cv-00583
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of West Virginia
• Parties: BYRON MEEKS, Plaintiff, v. BOBBY McCLUNG, et al., Defendants.

BYRON MEEKS, Plaintiff,
v.
BOBBY McCLUNG, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 2:20-cv-00583

United States District Court, S.D. West Virginia, Charleston Division

September 9, 2021

PROPOSED FINDINGS & RECOMMENDATION

Dwane L. Tinsley, United States Magistrate Judge

This matter is assigned to the Honorable Thomas E. Johnston, United States District Judge, and it is referred to the undersigned United States Magistrate Judge for submission of proposed findings and recommendations for disposition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B). (ECF No. 3.) Before this Court is the “Motion for Emergency/Expidited [sic] Relief Manditory [sic] Injunction” filed by Plaintiff Byron Meeks (“Plaintiff”). (ECF No. 18.) For the reasons explained more fully herein, it is respectfully RECOMMENDED that the motion be DENIED.

I. BACKGROUND

This action stems from a years-long, still-ongoing dispute between Plaintiff and various officials employed by the City of Parkersburg, West Virginia (the “City”) about parking for Plaintiff's vehicle repair shop. In fact, this is the second time in as many years that the dispute has been before this Court; on April 23, 2020, this Court dismissed a prior lawsuit Plaintiff filed against some of the same city officials he has named as defendants in this case wherein Plaintiff alleged that the officials harassed him and seized his customers' vehicles from his business. Meeks v. Martin, et al., Civil Action No. 2:19-

1

cv-00846. The instant case was filed just months afterward, on September 8, 2020. (ECF No. 1.)

Plaintiff's remaining claims in this action assert Fourth Amendment violations based on the defendants' alleged warrantless searches of his vehicle repair shop's parking area on August 6 and 10, 2020, and Plaintiff's allegedly warrantless arrest on August 10, 2020. (ECF Nos. 16, 21.) Notably, none of the remaining claims involve the seizure of any vehicles from the parking area on those dates or at any other time.

But the motion for injunctive relief represents that on June 9, 2021, the defendants “and their Co-Conspirators arbitrarily confiscated” a number of vehicles from the parking area and requests injunctive relief requiring a nonparty towing company to “Return the Customers['] Personal Property Along with the Money They Have Charged These People” and to “Return the vehicles that were illegally taken from a locked gated off-road parking facility that the Plaintiff owns.” (ECF No. 18 at 2, 4.) He also seeks “an...