Harden v. Equifax Information Services LLC et al

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
HOUSTON DIVISION
Tyrone Harden Jr., 	§
§
Plaintiff, 	§
§
v. 	§ 	Civil Action No. 4:25-cv-3655
§
Equifax Information Services LLC, 	§
Experian Information Solutions, Inc., 	§
and CCM Finance LLC, 	§
§
Defendants. 	§
JUDGE PALERMO’S
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
This is a vehicle-repossession case. Plaintiff Tyrone Harden Jr. moves to
strike Defendant Experian Information Solution Inc.’s (“Experian”) affirmative
defenses. ECF No. 48.1 After considering the parties’ briefing2 and applicable law,
the Court finds that Plaintiff’s motion should be denied.
I. 	BACKGROUND
The allegations in Plaintiff’s amended complaint are brief and a bit disjointed,
1 The district judge to whom this case is assigned referred all pretrial proceedings under 28 U.S.C.
§ 636(b)(1). ECF No. 22. “A motion to strike affirmative defenses is appropriate for a report and
recommendation.” MSHB Rest., LLC v. Nepal Bus. Inv., LLC, No. 4:24-CV-1973, 2025 WL
2461662, at *1 n.1 (S.D. Tex. Aug. 11, 2025), adopted, No. CV H-24-1973, 2025 WL 2461651
(S.D. Tex. Aug. 26, 2025); see also Slatter v. Chesapeake Energy Corp., No. 1:20-CV-440-RP,
2021 WL 3598373, at *1 (W.D. Tex. July 18, 2021) (noting that magistrate judge issued report
and 	recommendation 	on 	motion 	to 	strike 	affirmative 	defenses 	pursuant 	to 28 	U.S.C.
§ 636(b)); StarRotor Corp. v. Yasa Ltd., No. CV H-18-0453, 2019 WL 2524931, at *1 (S.D. Tex.
Apr. 2, 2019) (recommending denial of motion to strike affirmative defenses).
2 Experian responded. ECF No. 56.
United States District Court
Southern District of Texas
ENTERED
May 14, 2026
Nathan Ochsner, Clerk
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but the basic premise seems straightforward. Plaintiff opened two accounts with
CCM Finance LLC (“CCM”)—one ending in x2169 and another ending in x2019—
to purchase two vehicles. ECF No. 29 ¶ 10. At some point, it seems Plaintiff stopped
paying his loans, so CCM “repossessed Plaintiff’s vehicle[s] from [his] gated
apartment complex at night without notice,” taking the first car in February 2022
and the second one in September 2024. Id. ¶ 11. After repossessing the cars, Plaintiff
claims “CCM reported materially inconsistent balances, duplicate tradelines, and
contradictory statuses to Equifax and Experian.” Id. ¶ 12. In response, he “filed
multiple disputes” with “the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [“CFPB”] . . . ,
but Defendants failed to correct the inaccurate reporting.” Id. ¶ 13.
Plaintiff sued CCM, Experian, and Equifax on August 6, 2025. ECF No. 1.
He subsequently 	filed 	an 	amended 	complaint, asserting three claims 	against
Experian under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”): the first under 15 U.S.C.
§ 1681e(b); the second under § 1681i; and the third under §§ 1681n and 1681o. ECF
No. 29 ¶¶ 18–24.
Experian filed an answer to Plaintiff’s amended complaint and raised ten
affirmative defenses: statute of limitations, failure to mitigate damages, laches,
contributory 	or 	comparative 	negligence, 	estoppel, 	unclean 	hands, 	qualified
immunity, improper request for injunctive relief, arbitration, and constitutional
protections from punitive or exemplary damages. ECF No. 41 at 8–10. Plaintiff
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moves to strike Experian’s affirmative defenses. ECF No. 48.
II. 	STANDARD FOR STRIKING PLEADINGS
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(f) authorizes courts to “strike from a
pleading an insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or
scandalous matter.” “Striking an affirmative defense is rare and warranted only when
a defense cannot, as a matter of law, succeed under any circumstance.” MSHB Rest.,
LLC v. Nepal Bus. Inv., LLC, No. 4:24-CV-1973, 2025 WL 2461662, at *3 (S.D.
Tex. Aug. 11, 2025) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Njoku v. Harris
Cnty. Hosp. Dist., No. 3:22-CV-00406, 2024 WL 23175, at *2 (S.D. Tex. Jan. 2,
2024)), adopted, No. CV H-24-1973, 2025 WL 2461651 (S.D. Tex. Aug. 26, 2025).
In other words, “[a] motion to strike should be granted only when the pleading to be
stricken has no possible relation to the controversy.” Id. (alteration in original)
(quoting Njoku, 2024 WL 23175, at *2).
Importantly, “[a]ffirmative defenses are not subject to the heightened pleading
requirements stated in” Twombly or Iqbal. Youngers v. Scott & Assocs., P.C., No.
4:25-CV-2573, 2025 WL 3488668, at *2 (S.D. Tex. Oct. 24, 2025) (quoting T.R.M.
v. GlaxoSmithKline LLC, No. 4:14-cv-452, 2015 WL 12551485, at *2 (S.D. Tex.
Aug. 21, 2015)), adopted, No. 4:25-CV-2573, 2025 WL 3487703 (S.D. Tex. Dec. 4,
2025). Instead, a defendant need only “plead an affirmative defense with enough
specificity or factual particularity to give the plaintiff fair notice of the defense that
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is being advanced.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Alexander v. SCI
Shared Res. LLC, No. 4:25-CV-01325, 2025 WL 2398769, at *2 (S.D. Tex. Aug. 1,
2025), adopted, No. CV H-25-1325, 2025 WL 2480984 (S.D. Tex. Aug. 28, 2025)).
“Merely pleading the name of some affirmative defenses may be sufficient to
provide the plaintiff with fair notice.” MSHB Rest., 2025 WL 2461662, at *3
(quoting Njoku, 2024 WL 23175, at *2).
Courts have “‘ample discretion’ in deciding Rule 12(f) motions to strike.”
Alexander, 2025 WL 2398769, at *1 (quoting In re Beef Indus. Antitrust Litig.,
600 F.2d 1148, 1168 (5th Cir. 1979)).
III. 	PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO STRIKE SHOULD BE DENIED.
Plaintiff argues that Experian’s affirmative defenses are boilerplate, legally
insufficient, and factually unsupported. ECF No. 48 at 2–4. Experian contends that
it has given Plaintiff sufficient notice of its defenses. ECF No. 56 at 3–4. Experian
also points out that Plaintiff has not shown he will be prejudiced by Experian’s
affirmative defenses. Id. at 4. Experian is correct.
First, the Court finds that Experian provided Plaintiff fair notice of its
affirmative defenses. The proof is in the pudding: Plaintiff responded substantively
to Experian’s statute-of-limitations, qualified-immunity, improper-injunctive-relief,
arbitration, and constitutional defenses. ECF No. 48 at 2–4. For example, he argues
that the statute of limitations does not bar his FCRA claims because he filed his
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original complaint timely and the allegations in his amended complaint relate back
under Rule 15(c). 	Id. at 2–3. Similarly, Plaintiff maintains that (1) qualified
immunity “does not bar private FCRA claims where malice or willful intent is
alleged”; (2) the improper-injunctive-relief defense “is misplaced because Plaintiff
also seeks monetary and declaratory relief”; (3) “[a]rbitration is irrelevant absent a
signed 	arbitration 	agreement, 	which 	Experian 	has 	not 	produced”; 	and 	(4)
“[c]onstitutional limitations on punitive damages are premature until liability is
established.” Id. at 3–4. These arguments might be correct, or they might not be. But
the fact that Plaintiff was able to identify and specifically respond to these
affirmative defenses shows that Experian pled them sufficiently to provide fair
notice. That is all Rule 12(f) requires.
As to the other five defenses, Plaintiff accuses them of being “formulaic, one-
sentence statements with no factual support.” ECF No. 48 at 3. Specifically,
Experian asserts that (1) “Plaintiff has failed to mitigate damages”; (2) the
“Complaint and each claim for relief therein are barred by laches”; (3) “Plaintiff is
estopped and barred from recovery of any damages” because his conduct caused his
own damages; (4) the “Complaint and each claim for relief therein that seeks
equitable relief are barred by the doctrine of unclean hands”; and (5) that any alleged
damages were caused, at least in part, “by the actions of Plaintiff himself and/or third
parties.” ECF No. 41 at 9–10. True enough, these affirmative defenses are pretty
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boilerplate. Nonetheless, they satisfy Rule 12(f)’s lenient fair-notice standard. See,
e.g., Njoku, 2024 WL 23175, at *3 (finding affirmative defense asserting that
plaintiff “failed to mitigate, or reasonably attempt to mitigate, her damages, if any,”
sufficient to provide fair notice); Morgan v. Goodman Mfg. Co., L.P., No. 4:19-CV-
00850, 2021 WL 1169390, at *10 (S.D. Tex. Mar. 10, 2021) (holding affirmative
defense asserting that plaintiff “failed to mitigate his alleged damages” sufficient to
provide fair notice), adopted, No. 4:19-CV-00850, 2021 WL 1166756 (S.D. Tex.
Mar. 26, 2021); Tran v. Thai, No. H-08-3650, 2010 WL 723633, at *1–2 (S.D. Tex.
Mar. 1, 2010) (finding affirmative defense alleging that “[t]he plaintiff has failed to
mitigate damages, if any, as required by law” sufficient to provide fair notice).
Second, “a motion to strike affirmative defenses will generally not be granted
absent a showing of prejudice to the moving party.” Youngers, 2025 WL 3488668,
at *4 (citing Truport Logistics, LLC v. ATC W. Tex., LLC, No. 24-cv-115, 2024 WL
4256460, at *2 (W.D. Tex. Sept. 5, 2024)). Here, Plaintiff fails to allege, much less
show, that he will be prejudiced by leaving Experian’s affirmative defenses in place.
That alone dooms his motion.
IV. 	CONCLUSION
If Experian raises any of its affirmative defenses in a later motion or at trial,
Plaintiff will have an opportunity to litigate their merits. Plaintiff has not, however,
established a reason to strike them. Accordingly, the Court RECOMMENDS
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Plaintiff’s motion to strike, ECF No. 48, be DENIED.
The 	Parties 	have 	fourteen 	days 	from 	service 	of 	this 	Report 	and
Recommendation to file written objections. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C); F ED. R.
C IV . P. 72(b). Failure to file timely objections will preclude review of factual
findings or legal conclusions, except for plain error. Quinn v. Guerrero, 863 F.3d
353, 358 (5th Cir. 2017).
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Signed at Houston, Texas, on May 14, 2026.
Dena Hanovice Palermo
United States Magistrate Judge
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