While plaintiffs continue to obtain significant settlements in major breaches, U.S. federal courts have continued to tighten Article III standing requirements in data breach class actions, dismissing claims based solely on speculative future harm or mere unauthorized access without concrete injury.
The Trend
As previously reported, a recent Fourth Circuit decision held that plaintiffs who could show their driver’s license information had been publicly posted on the dark web in a way traceable to the breach had alleged a sufficiently concrete injury, while others alleging only unauthorized access and increased risk of identity theft lacked standing. Continuing with that trend, on November 3, 2025, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom in the Southern District of Florida issued a decision in Manning v. Zumpano Patricios, P.C. (No. 25-cv-23184) dismissing a proposed class action lawsuit against Miami-based law firm Zumpano Patricios P.A. The court ruled that plaintiffs lacked Article III standing due to insufficient allegations of concrete injury from a cybersecurity incident. The suit, filed shortly after breach notices, claimed increased risk of identity theft, emotional distress, and mitigation costs, but Judge Bloom held these were speculative without evidence of actual data misuse, imminent harm, or verifiable financial losses, emphasizing that a breach alone does not confer standing under federal precedents like TransUnion. The court closed the case at the pleading stage, providing clarity amid rising cyber threats that mere exposure to risk falls short of constitutional requirements. Then, on November 18, 2025, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals issued a decision in Michael Bauer v. Fincantieri Marine Group, LLC (No. 2024AP1882), dismissing a proposed class action for lack of standing due to insufficient allegations of concrete injury from a 2023 data breach affecting Wisconsin and Michigan residents. The breach exposed names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, health/diagnosis information, insurance details, photos, and medical account numbers, but plaintiffs failed to plead actual misuse, reasonable likelihood of future harm, or traceable losses.
Significance
These cases, all building on the Supreme Court’s TransUnion framework, are pushing plaintiffs’ counsel to focus on demonstrable misuse or public dissemination (for example, dark‑web publication, fraudulent accounts, or identity theft indicators) rather than generalized fear of future harm. These decisions are also giving defense counsel more leverage at the pleading stage by providing the needed precedent to insist on the following:
1. Standing and Harm Framing
Defendants may push early standing challenges where the complaint alleges only increased risk, mitigation time, or anxiety without actual misuse or public posting of data.
Defendants should also highlight the recent trend described above that concrete injury requires public disclosure (e.g., dark‑web posting) or specific fraudulent use, not just unauthorized access.
2. Causation and Scope of Plaintiffs
Defendants may also attack causation by highlighting gaps between alleged harms (e.g., spam calls, generic identity‑theft risk) and the breach when the data involved would not cause those harms.
The “some in, some out” pattern from Holmes v. Elephant Insurance Company may also provide grounds for dismissal if a few named plaintiffs allege dark‑web disclosure, but others only allege exposure or hypothetical risks.
3. Relief Requested and Remedy Limits
Defendants may also have grounds to dismiss claims for injunctive and declaratory relief where plaintiffs cannot show imminent risk of future misuse distinct from the past incident.
Mitigation costs (credit monitoring, time spent) and emotional distress alone are too speculative to support standing for prospective relief.
Curbing of Proliferation
Amid surging ransomware and supply-chain breaches, courts are signaling a judicial trend prioritizing concrete harm over breach notifications alone, which is welcome news for defendants facing these claims. Citing these cases and highlighting the facts as discussed in this article may result in a curbing of class action proliferation.