The Court reversed the lower court’s dismissal of the case and held that the named plaintiffs had demonstrated standing:
Here, Plaintiffs’ allegations of a substantial risk of harm, coupled with reasonably incurred mitigation costs, are sufficient to establish a cognizable Article III injury at the pleading stage of the litigation. Plaintiffs allege that the theft of their personal data places them at a continuing, increased risk of fraud and identity theft beyond the speculative allegations of “possible future injury” or “objectively reasonable likelihood” of injury that the Supreme Court has explained are insufficient. Clapper, 133 S. Ct. at 1147–48. There is no need for speculation where Plaintiffs allege that their data has already been stolen and is now in the hands of illintentioned criminals. Indeed, Nationwide seems to recognize the severity of the risk, given its offer to provide credit-monitoring and identity-theft protection for a full year. Where a data breach targets personal information, a reasonable inference can be drawn that the hackers will use the victims’ data for the fraudulent purposes alleged in Plaintiffs’ complaints. Thus, although it might not be “literally certain” that Plaintiffs’ data will be misused, id. at 1150 n.5, there is a sufficiently substantial risk of harm that incurring mitigation costs is reasonable. Where Plaintiffs already know that they have lost control of their data, it would be unreasonable to expect Plaintiffs to wait for actual misuse—a fraudulent charge on a credit card, for example—before taking steps to ensure their own personal and financial security, particularly when Nationwide recommended taking these steps. And here, the complaints allege that Plaintiffs and the other putative class members must expend time and money to monitor their credit, check their bank statements, and modify their financial accounts. Although Nationwide offered to provide some of these services for a limited time, Plaintiffs allege that the risk is continuing, and that they have also incurred costs to obtain protections—namely, credit freezes—that Nationwide recommended but did not cover. This is not a case where Plaintiffs seek to “manufacture standing by incurring costs in anticipation of non-imminent harm.” Id. at 1155. Rather, these costs are a concrete injury suffered to mitigate an imminent harm, and satisfy the injury requirement of Article III standing.
Leave A Comment