Kuhns v. Scottrade, Inc.

After hackers accessed the internal database of Scottrade, plaintiff and others filed a putative class action against Scottrade. The district court concluded that plaintiff lacked Article III standing because he had not suffered injury in fact and dismissed the Consolidated Complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Eighth Circuit held that plaintiff had Article III standing because he alleged a concrete and particularized breach of contract and "actual" injury. The court held, however, that plaintiff failed to state a claim for breach of an express contract where the allegation that the failure of Scottrade's security measures was a breach of contract that diminished the benefit of plaintiff's bargain was not plausible; claims for breach of implied contract and unjust enrichment were dismissed for the same failure to allege plausible claims; plaintiff's bare bones claim for declaratory relief was virtually unintelligible; and plaintiff failed to plausibly allege how failing to discover and notify customers of the data breach qualified as an unfair or deceptive trade practice under the state statute. Accordingly, the court affirmed the dismissal of the complaint. View "Kuhns v. Scottrade, Inc." on Justia Law