Rocket's Fight FAQs

RocketsFight.org is a tenant-led campaign for secure shelter for the vulnerable, built around the case McNeil & Poyer v. SAC 181, LLC and Meridian Residential Group, LLC (Case No. 2025‑CP‑10‑05095) in Charleston County Common Pleas Court. It uses this case as a live, documented example of how landlord‑tenant power imbalances and litigation tactics affect real families.

The plaintiffs are James C. (“Chris”) McNeil and Meaghan Poyer, a married couple who rented 181 Gordon Street in Charleston, South Carolina, from 2020 until August 2025. They appear in the case pro se, drawing on Chris’s background in systems analysis and strategic communication to document what happened in detail.

The named defendants are: SAC 181, LLC (property owner), Meridian Residential Group, LLC (property manager), Tara Bayles (Meridian CEO and PMIC), Adam W. Bayles (co‑owner of Meridian and registered agent of MRG Investing Company LLC), and MRG Investing Company LLC. The plaintiffs also seek leave to add SAC 181’s registered agent, Charles S. Altman, based on negligent retention and supervision theories.

The case began as a dispute over a $2,595 security deposit that was not returned within South Carolina’s 30‑day statutory deadline, then expanded as evidence emerged of:

• Allegedly falsified postal “postmark” documentation used to defend the late deposit return
• Unauthorized commercial use of family images and home interiors across dozens of rental platforms
• A Notice to Vacate and rent spike that plaintiffs contend were retaliation for asserting tenant‑rights and safety concerns
• A pattern of misrepresentations and procedural tactics in litigation that, according to plaintiffs, obstruct discovery and exhaust pro se resources.

Key legal issues framed by the filings include:

• Failure to timely return the security deposit under S.C. Code § 27‑40‑410
• Alleged fabrication or misuse of postal documentation to show timely mailing
• Retaliatory eviction and constructive displacement after safety and legal‑rights communications
• Privacy and misappropriation claims over widespread, unconsented publication of family images, personal belongings, and branding
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Rocket is the plaintiffs’ 15 year old Carolina Dog who had been going blind for about the last 3 1/2 years (24 years in dog years) but was able to function in a familiar environment. Plaintiffs had carefully arranged furnishings and organized their routines at 181 Gordon to accommodate his growing blindness. After the forced move, he was thrown out of his familiar environment, resulting in him getting trapped under a couch in the unfamiliar space, whimpering for hours until he was found. South Carolina law does not provide separate damages for harm to pets, but Rocket’s decline is being used as demonstrative evidence of the plaintiffs’ emotional distress and life disruption caused by displacement.

The plaintiffs argue that this case exposes:

• How property managers and high‑net‑worth owners can leverage corporate structures to diffuse accountability for statutory violations and privacy harms
• How privacy‑invasive listing practices (inspection photos and virtual tours) can cross legal lines when consent is induced by misrepresentation and images are widely syndicated
• How litigation tactics—discovery obstruction, motion layering, and sanctions threats—can be used to exhaust pro se tenants rather than meet claims on the merits

In various filings, defendants have:

• Disputed liability and sought dismissal of claims
• Challenged discovery scope and requested protective orders and stays
• Filed a motion for sanctions alleging improper citation practices and speculative AI misuse in plaintiffs’ work

Yes. In responding to SAC 181’s sanctions motion, the plaintiffs admitted citation errors in two filings, filed a Notice of Correction with accurate South Carolina authorities, and explained that the errors arose under intense, defense‑created time pressure rather than from any intent to mislead. They argue that once corrected, the underlying legal principles remain intact and that the dismissal and severe sanctions sought by SAC 181 attorneys are grossly disproportionate.

The campaign has three stated aims:

1. Fund the plaintiffs’ ability to continue litigating this complex case to a jury verdict if necessary.
2. Use live, documented case materials to illuminate how landlord‑tenant systems impact vulnerable renters.
3. Advocate for meaningful accountability where statutory protections and privacy rights are violated, so that penalties are strong enough to deter systemic abuse.
4. Utilize the case to relaunch the Strategic Thought Leadership Platform that Plaintiffs contend had its launch destroyed at a critical moment by the untimely forced move and subsequent intention time wasting by attorneys hired by defendants.
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Plaintiff Chris McNeil had been working on his concept of Strategic Thought Leadership for over 5 years. It had proven its effectiveness multiple times but had also been difficult to market or explain ... until an effective product-market fit was found by combining it with AI propagation of the Thought Leadership Models it helps build. People finally understood it and demand was strong and rising, just before it all got shut down - Plaintiffs contend - by the defendants and their counsel's actions.

Click for more details ...

You can review the social media activity graphs and flatlining of the Thought Leadership Studio podcast - which had just exceeded over 100 episodes without a single new episode released in now nearly 4 months since the forced me - and see and judge the impact for yourself.

South Carolina law requires mitigating your own damages and the ideal way to do so in the case is to relaunch the platform with the purpose of creating positive change in housing security for the vulnerable in particular, but also in creating a more humane and - in the long run - more profitable paradigm for property managers and owners.

The high publicity value of a case about (alleged) multiple-factor tenant exploitation in Charleston, SC's housing crisis, with a well known and respected Charleston family's home - built in 1940 by Altman's Furniture founder Israel Altman - at the center could potentially:

1. mitigate damages, and
2. help others by impacting how people think about tenant rights, the dignity of the human need for shelter, while
3. demonstrating the value of what was lost to both the public and jurors as well.

The plaintiffs intend to use crowdfunding proceeds for:

• Litigation expenses (expert consultations, discovery costs, copying, travel, and related out‑of‑pocket case costs)
• Direct life‑stability needs harmed by the alleged conduct (including medical and care needs for Rocket, household relocation impacts, and the income disruption from diverted work time)[2][1]

They are not offering legal or financial advice and are not selling securities or ownership interests; contributions are gifts to support this specific advocacy and litigation effort.

No. Nothing on RocketsFight.org is legal advice. The site shares one household’s experience and perspective on an ongoing case, along with aiming to empower:

• tenants to stand on their rights,
• property managers and owners to realize that the "Rental Property Ownership as Conscious Stewardship" model can be more profitable as well as more humane than current prevalent "Passive Ownership without Responsibility" and "Tenants as data points to extract profits from" spoken and unspoken models, and
• People in general to revere the human right to the dignity stable shelter affords.