It seems like wrong number TCPA class actions are all the rage again.

I recently wrote about Assurance IQ’s $20+MM TCPA settlement that likely lead to the company being shuttered. That was all about wrong numbers.

Citibank also just agreed to a $20+MM TCPA settlement that I haven’t blogged about yet to allow the claims process to run without interference.

And now, it seems, American Honda Finance Corp. is turning summersaults in a wrong number case arising out of debt collection efforts.

In Shammam v. American Honda Finance Corp., 2024 WL 4596405 (S.D. Cal. Oct. 28, 2024) Honda decided to amend its answer to add a suit against its customer and against plaintiff for fraud. The court allowed it to sue its customer but not the plaintiff.

Here’s what happened.

This guy Danny Barka owned something called ILS Labs, Inc. and bought a vehicle of some kind back in 2020 financed through Honda Finance.

Apparently Plaintiff is Barka’s brother-in-law and the agent for service of process for ILS Labs. So Barka put Plaintiff’s phone number–(619) 992-7172–on the credit application for the loan.

Barka stopped paying and Honda started calling. But since it only had Plaintiff’s number Plaintiff sued Honda under the TCPA claiming it was “barka” up the wrong tree. (Thank you.)

Honda turned around and tried to sue Plaintiff for conspiracy. In its view Plaintiff must have conspired with Barka to provide Plaintiff’s number so that Honda would call and set up a TCPA lawsuit.

If that sounds like a stretch its because it is and the court refused to allow the claim to proceed.

The Court did allow Honda to sue Barka, however, reasoning that Bark’a screwup had lead to the lawsuit. So now any judgment entered in favor of Plaintiff may ultimately be payable by his brother-in-law.

Fun, no?

So you see Honda’s aggressive play here actually creates a ton of leverage and is a good move for a couple of reasons. First, it puts plaintiff in a tough spot. He is essentially suing his brother-in-law indirectly. And while he may recover big dollars against Honda, Honda can likely drive Barka into BK in the meantime. Its the little things..

More importantly–in my view at least–the crossclaim highlights individualized issues out there. Whose number was called and why? And what is a “wrong number” anyway in a world where people allow others to use their for business purposes. Couldn’t a jury determine that Plaintiff allowed Barka to supply his number given the relationship between the two? Seems like it to me.

So Honda’s move may seem gruff—suing ones own customer is something few companies want to contemplate–but where tens of millions of dollars are on the line sometime you have to be a little tough.