A Missouri federal court’s devastating 26-page sanctions order in Human v. Fisher Investments offers a rare, detailed look at the predatory litigation model that has become a growing threat to legitimate businesses — including ecommerce merchants.

Last week, Judge Matthew T. Schelp of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri issued one of the most striking TCPA sanctions orders in recent memory. In Human v. Fisher Investments, Inc., No. 4:24-cv-01177-MTS, the court dismissed plaintiff Daniel Human’s claims entirely and struck his pleadings — the litigation equivalent of a complete forfeit — after finding that Human had deliberately destroyed a key piece of evidence just days before a court-ordered device inspection.

The order is remarkable not just for what it decided, but for what it revealed.

Who Is Daniel Human?

The court’s opinion opens with a fact pattern that should be familiar to anyone who has dealt with serial TCPA demand letters: a single plaintiff who filed more than 65 TCPA lawsuits in a single 12-month period. Human’s standard playbook, the court explained, was to file cases pro se in Missouri state court, collect quick settlements from defendants unwilling to litigate, and move on. When defendants pushed back and removed cases to federal court, an attorney would appear and the cycle would continue.

Two prior federal court filings — one from a defendant, one from a counterplaintiff — had formally accused Human of a specific form of TCPA fraud: deliberately submitting his own phone number to company websites using a fake name, then suing when those companies called him. Both of those cases settled. Neither resulted in any accountability for Human — until now.

The Fisher Investments Case

Fisher Investments maintained from day one that Human had submitted an online consent form using his own phone number but a different person’s name — “Veronica Moreno” — to manufacture the appearance of an unsolicited call. Fisher’s theory was not speculative. The company asserted it from the opening of the case, preserved it in its answer, and pursued evidence to prove it.

What followed was a months-long pattern of obstruction that the court documented in unflinching detail:

• Discovery stonewalling. Human failed to respond to discovery requests on time, produced largely nonresponsive documents, and repeatedly avoided scheduling his deposition.
• Attempted unilateral dismissals. On the morning of the court-ordered device inspection — with Fisher’s forensic expert already flown in from Nebraska — Human filed two successive “notices of voluntary dismissal,” both of which the court struck as procedurally improper.
• A decoy laptop. When Human finally appeared at the device inspection hours late, he produced a laptop that the forensic examiner concluded he had never used — while failing to disclose that he owned and regularly used a desktop computer for his TCPA work.
• Destruction of evidence. Human admitted on the record that he threw that desktop computer in the trash less than 48 hours before the court-ordered inspection. The computer came to light only because Human had mentioned it in an email to an attorney at the same firm representing Fisher in this case.
• A bankruptcy filing. After finally sitting for his deposition — at which he invoked the Fifth Amendment dozens of times — Human filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, triggering an automatic stay that halted Fisher’s counterclaim. He dismissed the bankruptcy shortly after the bankruptcy court granted Fisher’s motion for relief from the stay.
• Frivolous appellate filings. Human filed a notice of appeal that the Eighth Circuit dismissed in eight days, a petition for writ of mandamus that was denied in two days, and a request for en banc rehearing that not a single circuit judge supported.

The Court’s Findings

Judge Schelp had little difficulty concluding that sanctions were warranted under three independent grounds: Rule 37(b) (violation of a discovery order), Rule 37(e) (intentional spoliation of electronically stored information), and the court’s inherent authority to sanction bad-faith conduct.

On the facts, the court made an explicit finding that the desktop computer would have contained evidence of the fraud Fisher alleged — and that Human destroyed it precisely for that reason. The forensic evidence from Human’s phone, which received text messages addressed to more than a dozen different names and “hardly any” addressed to Human himself, corroborated Fisher’s theory. The court also drew an adverse inference from Human’s repeated Fifth Amendment invocations at his deposition.

The result: Human’s claims are dismissed. His answer to Fisher’s fraud counterclaim is stricken. Fisher’s counterclaim — alleging that Human manufactured false TCPA claims and made “extortionate settlement demands” — proceeds.

Why This Matters for Ecommerce Merchants

The EIA has long flagged serial TCPA litigation as one of the most acute legal threats facing ecommerce businesses. The statute’s per-violation damages structure — up to $1,500 per call or text — makes it a uniquely attractive vehicle for the type of abuse documented in Human v. Fisher Investments. Merchants, lead generators, and SMS platforms are all potential targets.

The Human decision matters for several reasons:

1. Courts are paying attention. The opinion documents with unusual specificity the tactics serial TCPA plaintiffs and their attorneys use to extract settlements. That record now exists in a published federal opinion — and can be cited in other cases.

2. Counterclaims work. Fisher’s decision to assert a fraud counterclaim, rather than simply defend, was strategically decisive. It changed the posture of the case, survived a motion to dismiss, and ultimately positioned Fisher to pursue damages against Human even after his claims are gone.

3. Spoliation sanctions are available — but you have to fight for them. Fisher’s persistence through months of obstruction, its formal sanctions motions, and its thorough evidentiary record made this outcome possible. Defendants who fold early never get here.

4. The “TCPA as side hustle” model has limits. The court did not mince words about Human’s modus operandi. The opinion provides a roadmap for how defendants — and ultimately courts — can identify and respond to manufactured TCPA claims.

The EIA’s Position

The EIA supports robust consumer protection law, including meaningful enforcement of the TCPA’s protections against genuinely unwanted calls and texts. What we oppose — and what Human v. Fisher Investments illustrates in stark terms — is the weaponization of those laws by bad-faith actors to extract settlements from legitimate businesses.

We will continue to monitor cases like this one, advocate for procedural reforms that reduce the incentives for manufactured litigation, and keep our members informed as the legal landscape evolves.

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Ecommerce Innovation Alliance provides members with analysis of litigation and regulatory developments affecting online commerce and digital marketing. This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.