{"id":792,"date":"2023-09-06T07:51:39","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T11:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/?p=792"},"modified":"2023-09-06T07:51:53","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T11:51:53","slug":"maryland-federal-district-court-in-dismisses-class-action-alleging-website-privacy-violations-for-lack-of-article-iii-standing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/2023\/09\/06\/maryland-federal-district-court-in-dismisses-class-action-alleging-website-privacy-violations-for-lack-of-article-iii-standing\/","title":{"rendered":"Maryland Federal District Court Dismisses Class Action Alleging Website Privacy Violations For Lack Of Article III Standing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Gerald L. Maatman, Jr., Jennifer A. Riley and Rebecca S. Bjork<\/p>\n

Duane Morris Takeaways<\/em><\/strong>:<\/strong> On September 1, 2023, Judge Deborah Chasanow of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland granted<\/a>\u00a0a motion to dismiss a class action alleging that the website of defendant Jetblue Airways violated users\u2019 privacy rights under the Maryland Website and Electronic Surveillance Act (\u201cMWES\u201dA). \u00a0Finding that the named Plaintiff lacked Article III standing to bring the lawsuit, the Court relied upon the lack of any allegations in the Complaint that any of Plaintiff\u2019s personal information was captured by the alleged use of a session replay code.\u00a0 As a result, his Complaint lacked any allegation of a concrete harm that is necessary to bestow standing by virtue of suffering an injury-in-fact.\u00a0 Employers are well-served to examine their websites for the level of risk they might pose of exposure to litigation of this kind, which is currently being filed in more and more courts around the country.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Case Background<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jetblue Airways Corp. (\u201cJetblue\u201d) was sued by Matthew Straubmuller in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, alleging that he and a putative class of website users who had visited Jetblue\u2019s website were entitled to damages from Jetblue for violation of the MWESA. \u00a0Slip Op. at 2.\u00a0 The purpose of that statute is two-fold: both to be a useful tool in crime prevention; and to ensure that \u201cinterception of private communications is limited.\u201d\u00a0 Id<\/em>. at 8.<\/p>\n

Plaintiff alleged Jetblue\u2019s website uses a \u201csession replay code” and that this allows for Jetblue to track users electronic communications with the website in real time, and also can enable reenactments of a user\u2019s visit to the website, and that these constitute actionable privacy violations under the provisions of the MWESA.<\/p>\n

JetBlue filed a motion to dismiss. It asserted that that Plaintiff lacked Article III standing to bring his claims.\u00a0 It contended that Plaintiff alleged a mere procedural violation of the MWESA and did not allege a concrete harm necessary to establish an injury-in-fact to confer standing.<\/p>\n

The District Court\u2019s Decision<\/strong><\/p>\n

Judge Chasnow granted Jetblue\u2019s motion to dismiss.\u00a0 Relying on the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in TransUnion v. Ramirez<\/em>, 141 S. Ct. 2190 (2021), she rejected Plaintiff\u2019s argument that a statutory violation alone is a concrete injury.\u00a0 The Judge opined that \u201cCourts must independently decide whether a plaintiff has suffered a concrete harm because a plaintiff cannot automatically satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement whenever there is a statutory violation.\u201d\u00a0 Slip Op. at 5-6 (quoting TransUnion<\/em> (\u201cunder Article III, an injury in law is not an injury in fact.\u201d).\u00a0 And more to the point, she cited case law interpreting the MWESA itself to this effect, which Plaintiff had not cited.\u00a0 Id.<\/p>\n

As a way of underlining its ruling, the Court noted that Jetblue had submitted a June 12, 2023 decision coming to the exact same conclusion involving a nearly identical complaint filed against Jetblue in the Southern District of California in Lightoller v. Jetblue Airways Corp.<\/em>\u00a0 Id. at 4.n.1. Other cases involving similar rulings are presently percolating throughout the federal district courts.\u00a0 Id. at 7 (collecting cases).<\/p>\n

Implications For Employers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Judge Chasnow\u2019s decision in Straubmuller v. Jetblue Airways Corp.<\/em> provides corporate counsel with a good opportunity to set up a time to talk with their company\u2019s information technology officers to discuss litigation risks related to websites and how they interact with employees, prospective employees and customers.\u00a0 As more plaintiffs-side attorneys file lawsuits alleging privacy violations like the ones alleged against Jetblue in both state and federal courts around the country, many have a good chance of surviving motions to dismiss.\u00a0 Preventing class action lawsuits are far superior to defending them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gerald L. Maatman, Jr., Jennifer A. Riley and Rebecca S. Bjork Duane Morris Takeaways: On September 1, 2023, Judge Deborah Chasanow of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland granted\u00a0a motion to dismiss a class action alleging that the website of defendant Jetblue Airways violated users\u2019 privacy rights under the Maryland Website … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Maryland Federal District Court Dismisses Class Action Alleging Website Privacy Violations For Lack Of Article III Standing”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":575,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[7,9,11],"class_list":["post-792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-privacy-class-actions"],"authors":[{"term_id":7,"user_id":575,"is_guest":0,"slug":"gmaatman","display_name":"Gerald L. Maatman, Jr.","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/09\/maatmangerald-100x100.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""},{"term_id":9,"user_id":576,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jariley","display_name":"Jennifer A. Riley","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/08\/rileyjennifer-100x100.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""},{"term_id":11,"user_id":579,"is_guest":0,"slug":"rsbjork","display_name":"Rebecca S. Bjork","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/09\/bjorkrebecca-100x100.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/575"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}