U.S. District Court Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. found a Cumberland County resident’s First Amendment rights were not violated when Crossville Police arrested him for parking in the roadway on Main Street during a Pride festival in 2023.
The lawsuit seeking $2 million filed by Wallace Shane Wattenbarger was dismissed “with prejudice,” with the note Wattenbarger did not present “a set of facts that would entitle him to relief.”
Dismissed with prejudice means a lawsuit or criminal charge is permanently terminated by a judge and cannot be refiled, reopened, or brought back to court. It acts as a final judgment on the merits, often resulting from settlements, lack of evidence, or severe procedural issues.
Wattenbarger, 52, of Wattenbarger Road, was arrested June 17, 2023, for disrupting a public meeting after he stopped his pickup truck pulling a horse trailer in front of the courthouse lawn on Main Street where the Upper Cumberland Pride rally was being held.
The trailer was draped with a number of signs displaying anti-gay and anti-lesbian comments and slurs.
Wattenbarger said he was at the protest exercising his First Amendment right, same as those attending the festival.
Police told Wattenbarger on more than one occasion he could not impede traffic, and he move his truck and trailer only to return, parking with trailer extending into the lane of traffic.
He was arrested for disrupting a public meeting, a charge later dropped.
Wattenbarger, according to a police report at the time, protested his arrest, stating it violated his First Amendment rights.
The court ruled that despite the content of the banners displayed on Wattenbarger’s truck, his banners were covered by the First Amendment as protected speech.
That First Amendment right, however, did not extend to blocking the road.
Wattenbarger sued the city as a result of his arrest that he contended was based on some unidentified “written policy and practice,” the federal court document states.
City Attorney Randy York countered with two motions to dismiss the lawsuit — one citing the statute of limitations for filing the lawsuit had expired and facts presented by Wattenbarger fails to support the claim.
Specifically, the judge found that by failing to file a brief supporting his claims, Wattenbarger abandoned the issue he raised in the suit.
“Plaintiff (Wattenbarger) makes no reference to … the crux of defendant’s argument … and, by failing to do so, doom their claim,” the judge wrote.
“From that unremarkable position, Wattenbager asks the reader (judge) to infer a broader municipal custom of using enforcement authority to suppress disfavored expression, when there are no allegations that the statute here was selectively used against him,” the ruling continued. “Suffice it to say, that inference is not plausible.”
The judge concluded that enforcement of a neutral statue, unrelated to his self-expression, was without proof or set of facts “that would entitle him to relief.”
Efforts Monday to contact York and Wattenbarger for comment were unsuccessful.