Timothy Hall v. John Doe

IN THE INTERMEDIATE COURT OF APPEALS OF WEST VIRGINIA
FILED
May 1, 2026
TIMOTHY HALL,
ASHLEY N. DEEM, CHIEF DEPUTY CLERK
Plaintiff Below, Petitioner INTERMEDIATE COURT OF APPEALS
OF WEST VIRGINIA

v.) No. 25-ICA-300 (Cir. Ct. of Berkeley Cnty. Case No. CC-02-2023-C-182)

JOHN DOE,
Defendant Below, Respondent

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Petitioner Timothy Hall appeals the June 19, 2025, dismissal order from the Circuit
Court of Berkeley County. The circuit court dismissed Mr. Hall’s complaint with prejudice
for inactivity pursuant to Rule 41(b) of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure.
Respondent “John Doe” is unknown and did not participate in this appeal. Independent
Bible Church, a non-party to this case, was granted leave by the Court to file a summary
response in support of the circuit court’s decision.1 Mr. Hall filed a reply.

This Court has jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to West Virginia Code § 51-
11-4 (2024). After considering the parties’ arguments, the record on appeal, and the
applicable law, this Court finds no substantial question of law and no prejudicial error. For
these reasons, a memorandum decision affirming the circuit court’s order is appropriate
under Rule 21 of the West Virginia Rules of Appellate Procedure.

Based upon the limited record on appeal, the facts of this case are relatively sparse.
On May 19, 2023, Mr. Hall filed a self-represented complaint in circuit court. The
complaint named John Doe as the lone defendant and stated that it was filed solely for the
purpose of retrieving “records, communications[,] and all other documentation of
information” related to alleged incidents at Independent Bible Church (“Church”),
involving the targeted harassment of his minor daughter. According to the complaint, these
actions interfered with Mr. Hall and his family’s freedom of religion and right to worship.
The complaint further stated that the John Doe designation would be amended once the
proper defendant(s) were identified.

Mr. Hall never named the Church as a defendant, and he did not serve it with the
complaint. Nevertheless, on June 6, 2023, Mr. Hall served the Church with a subpoena,

1
Mr. Hall is self-represented. Independent Bible Church is represented by Thomas
J. Hurney, Jr., Esq.

1
which commanded the Church to provide him with certain relevant records and the identity
of the individual(s) involved in the incidents with this child. The Church’s counsel objected
to the subpoena. In response, Mr. Hall filed a motion to compel. The circuit court denied
the motion in an order dated November 20, 2023, finding, among other things, that the
West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure do not recognize or permit the filing of a complaint
solely for the purposes of serving subpoenas to discover certain information. On January
2, 2024, Mr. Hall filed a second motion to compel in the underlying case. Through this
motion, Mr. Hall sought to compel another non-party, Fidelity Investments, to produce
records related to Mr. Hall’s retirement account allegedly being impermissibly accessed on
September 8, 2020. The court denied this motion on March 6, 2024, finding that neither
Fidelity Investments nor the alleged retirement account breach incident had any relevance
to the underlying complaint.2

Thereafter, according to the court, Mr. Hall took no further documented action in
the case; this included no evidence of efforts to identify John Doe and serve them with the
complaint. On March 20, 2025, the court entered a notice of its intent to dismiss the action
for inactivity in excess of one year pursuant to Rule 41(b) of the West Virginia Rules of
Civil Procedure and Syllabus Point 3 of Dimon v. Mansy, 198 W. Va. 40, 479 S.E.2d 339
(1996).3 Mr. Hall responded to the notice on April 7, 2023, and attempted to set forth
grounds to establish good cause and elude dismissal of the case. However, the response
made no mention of the Church or the purported incidents involving his child. Instead, Mr.
Hall claimed that the case was not dormant because he had acted outside of the circuit court
proceedings by filing a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request with the West
Virginia State Police and foreign subpoenas, all in an effort to identify John Doe for the
Fidelity Investment allegations. Notably, Mr. Hall did not attach any documentation to his
response to corroborate the existence of the purported FOIA request and foreign subpoenas.
Mr. Hall also blamed the court system for any delay with his case.4

After reviewing Mr. Hall’s response and the record, the circuit court dismissed the
case by order dated June 19, 2025. In its order, the court noted that Rule 41(b)(2) of the

2
The court’s rulings on the motions to compel are not the subject of this appeal.
3
This syllabus point explains in great detail the steps a circuit court must follow to
ensure a party has adequate notice and opportunity to be heard prior to the court dismissing
a case pursuant to Rule 41(b).
4
Mr. Hall claimed that any delay was the result of interference and malfeasance
committed by a wide range of individuals, including the presiding judge and staff, other
members of the judicial branch, and the prosecuting attorney’s office, among others. As a
result, the presiding judge entered an order of recusal and transferred the case to another
circuit court judge who ultimately ruled upon the pending notice of intent to dismiss and
entered the order now on appeal.
2
West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure permits courts to dismiss cases for inactivity under
the following circumstances:

Any court in which an action has been pending for more than one year where
no action has been taken by the plaintiff, the court may, in its discretion,
order such action dismissed. For good cause shown, the court may, reinstate
any action dismissed under this subsection on motion filed within three terms
after entry of the order of dismissal.

The court further noted that in accordance with our Supreme Court of Appeals’
holding in Dimon, Mr. Hall had been afforded notice and an opportunity to be heard, and
that because he did not request a hearing, the court was ruling upon the matter based upon
the existing record. See Dimon, 198 W. Va. at 43, 479 S.E.2d at 342, syl. pt. 3, in part
(holding that unless a party opposing dismissal sets the matter for hearing, “the court may
decide the issue upon the existing record after expiration of the time for serving a motion
and any reply.”).

Based upon its review of the record, the court found that Mr. Hall had failed to
demonstrate good cause to avoid dismissal. Instead, the court observed that in the two years
since the complaint was filed in May of 2023, Mr. Hall has yet to identify and name a real
defendant to serve with the complaint, and despite the court previously finding that
complaints cannot be used solely for the purposes of issuing subpoenas to compel the
release of information, the complaint had not been amended to include a proper cause of
action. Moreover, Mr. Hall could not establish good cause by blaming the delay on
unsupported claims against the court system, and Mr. Hall’s status as a self-represented
party did not insulate him from the duty to timely prosecute his cause of action. Thus, the
court determined that Mr. Hall had failed to prosecute his claim timely, and as a result,
dismissal was warranted. The case was dismissed with prejudice and this appeal followed.

In reviewing this appeal, we apply an abuse of discretion standard. Caruso v.
Pearce, 223 W. Va. 544, 547, 678 S.E.2d 50, 53 (2009) (“We review a circuit court’s order
dismissing a case for inactivity pursuant to Rule 41(b) under an abuse of discretion
standard.”).

On appeal, Mr. Hall makes several arguments to broadly contend that the circuit
court abused its discretion, dismissing his case without a hearing and with prejudice. For
example, he asserts that the court erred in its application of the law to the facts when it
determined that good cause had not been shown. Instead, Mr. Hall maintains that after an
independent review of the evidence, this Court should reverse the circuit court.
Specifically, he maintains that despite the case record being silent since the court’s denial
of his motions to compel, he has been actively and diligently seeking the identity of John
Doe through alternative means of discovery and, thus, he has not abandoned the circuit
court litigation. He also claims that no prejudice results from the case remaining on the

3
court’s docket because John Doe has not been identified and he cannot determine the
identity without this case. We find no merit in these assertions.

Notably, none of Mr. Hall’s arguments speak to his underlying complaint and the
Church-related incidents. Rather, Mr. Hall’s arguments are centered on the alleged events
and claims involving Fidelity Investments, all of which are not related to the complaint that
was dismissed by the circuit court and is the subject of the present appeal. Further, we find
no merit in Mr. Hall’s assertion that he was prejudiced by the court deciding the matter
without a formal hearing. As the circuit court aptly observed, Dimon clearly states that
unless a party requests a hearing on a Rule 41(b) motion, the court has the authority to rule
based upon the existing record. See Dimon, 198 W. Va. at 43, 479 S.E.2d at 342, syl. pt. 3,
in part. Here, Mr. Hall offers no authority to counter the circuit court’s reasoning and does
not cite to the record to show that a hearing was requested.

Similarly, we find no basis to disturb the circuit court’s determination that the case
had been inactive for more than one year and Mr. Hall had not established good cause to
evade the dismissal of his case. Here, Mr. Hall attempts to counter the circuit court’s
assessment by pointing to his outside efforts to prosecute his action through FOIA and
foreign subpoenas,5 but no evidence of those efforts accompanied his response to the
court’s notice of intent to dismiss. This is problematic for Mr. Hall because “what does not
so appear [in the record] does not exist in law.” Syl. Pt. 3, in part, Hudgins v. Crowder &
Freeman, Inc., 156 W. Va. 111, 191 S.E.2d 443 (1972).

Instead, the Court concludes that the record in this matter illustrates that this cause
of action was inactive for more than one year and, thus, the threshold dormancy
requirement of Rule 41(b) of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure has been met.
Moreover, the record shows that the court complied with Dimon by affording Mr. Hall
notice and an opportunity to be heard. Thereafter, the court reviewed the record and made
the discretionary determination that good cause had not been shown and that dismissal with
prejudice was appropriate.

Under the abuse of discretion standard of review, “we will not disturb a circuit
court’s decision unless the circuit court makes a clear error of judgment or exceeds the
bound of permissible choices in the circumstances.” Wells v. Key Commc’ns, L.L.C., 226
W. Va. 547, 551, 703 S.E.2d 518, 522 (2010) (citation modified). Here, Mr. Hall’s
arguments fail to establish an abuse of discretion, and our review of the record shows no

5
As part of this argument, Mr. Hall also notes for the first time the additional matters
he has initiated outside of the circuit court proceeding to obtain discovery and pursue his
case. We decline to acknowledge the same because they involve facts that were not raised
in the record below. Further, they relate to Fidelity Investments, and as previously noted,
are not relevant to the ruling on appeal.
4
abuse of discretion by the circuit court.6 As such, we affirm the court’s June 19, 2025,
dismissal order.

Accordingly, we affirm.

Affirmed.

ISSUED: May 1, 2026

CONCURRED IN BY:

Chief Judge Daniel W. Greear
Judge S. Ryan White

Judge Charles O. Lorensen, not participating

6
Moreover, because Mr. Hall can file a motion in circuit court for leave to reinstate
his case, he cannot establish prejudice from the court’s dismissal order herein. See W. Va.
R. Civ. P. 41(b), in part (“For good cause shown, the court may, reinstate any action
dismissed under this subsection on motion filed within three terms after entry of the order
of dismissal.”).
5