Kuhns v. Scottrade, Inc., No. 16-3426 (8th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseAfter 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.
Court Description: Loken, Author, with Wollman, Circuit Judge, and Rossiter, District Judge] Civil case - Class Actions. In action alleging defendant failed to provide adequate cybersecurity for brokerage accounts, thereby permitting a breach of the database containing its customers' personal identification information, plaintiff had standing regarding his breach of contract and contract related claims based on allegations that he did not receive the full benefit of his bargain with defendant; however, he failed to state a cause of action for breach of contract, and the district court did not err in dismissing the complaint; for the same reasons outlined in discussing the breach of contract claim, plaintiff's claims for breach of implied contract and unjust enrichment fail; no error in dismissing plaintiff's claims under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. [ August 18, 2017
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.