If you run an outbound floor long enough, you meet him eventually: the consumer who seems to want your call, picks up, plays along, and then shows up as the named plaintiff in a TCPA complaint. Most operators treat that as a cost of doing business. On September 30, 2026, a federal judge in Missouri treated it as fraud.
In Human v. Fisher Investments, Inc., No. 4:24-cv-01177-MTS (E.D. Mo.), Judge Matthew T. Schelp found that the lawsuit was brought “in complete bad faith” and that “the genesis of this entire action was Human’s fraud.” The court ordered that Fisher Investments can recover all of its reasonable attorney’s fees for defending against the TCPA claims, from the start of the case. The plaintiff, his attorney Edwin Butler, and Butler Law Group LLC are jointly and severally liable for the full award.
What the court found
According to reporting on the order, the court found that Daniel Human gave his phone number under a fake name to request solicitations, so that he could sue under the TCPA once Fisher called. The court described this as his “practice,” and noted that dozens of prior defendants had settled similar claims.
The discovery record made it worse. The court found that Human destroyed his desktop computer two days before a court-ordered inspection and brought a decoy laptop instead. The court had previously struck Human’s pleadings. It also found that his lawyer knew the claims were not legitimate when he entered the case, and it did not credit the lawyer’s testimony.
The fee award covers the defense of Human’s claims. Fees tied to Fisher’s own fraud counterclaim are carved out of the blanket award, though Fisher can seek separate sanctions for specific misconduct. Fisher’s fee records are due October 22, 2026, with oppositions and replies to follow.
Why operators should not relax
It is tempting to read this as the system finally catching up with professional plaintiffs. Be careful with that conclusion. Look at what it took. The case was filed in 2024. Fisher had to push for a forensic inspection, fight through discovery, prove the setup, and then win sanctions. That is a defense budget most outbound businesses do not have for a single plaintiff.
The other detail that matters is the one that sounds most ordinary: dozens of prior defendants settled. Each of those companies made a rational decision. Paying a settlement was cheaper than finding out what Fisher found out. That is the business model a serial filer depends on, and one sanctions order does not end it.
What to change on the floor
The practical lesson is to stop meeting these plaintiffs in the first place. A few habits help:
- Treat consent records as evidence. Capture the form, the timestamp, the IP and the exact language the person agreed to. Fisher’s case turned on proving how the number entered its system.
- Watch for mismatches. A name that does not match the number’s history, or a lead that converts suspiciously well and then goes quiet, deserves a second look before the second call.
- Keep your own data. Call logs, dispositions and recordings are what let you show a court what actually happened.
- Screen before you dial. The cheapest dispute is the call that never went out.
That last point is where a litigator screen earns its keep. TCPALitigatorList.com helps outbound teams check numbers against known TCPA litigators and serial filers before a campaign goes live, so the contacts most likely to turn into a complaint are pulled out of the list upstream rather than discovered in a demand letter.
The bottom line
Courts will occasionally punish a manufactured TCPA claim, and Human v. Fisher shows they can do it forcefully. But a fee award at the end of a long case is a remedy, not a strategy. For an outbound operator, the strategy is clean consent, good records and a list that has already been scrubbed of the people who sue for a living.