Christopher Holmes v. Elephant Insurance Company
Split Score
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Case Summary
Disposition
Affirmed in Part
Plaintiffs sued Elephant Insurance after hackers obtained nearly three million driver’s-license numbers via Elephant’s online quote platform. The Fourth Circuit held that two plaintiffs whose license numbers were found on the dark web have standing to seek damages because the disclosure constitutes a concrete injury, but affirmed dismissal of the other plaintiffs and all claims for injunctive relief, concluding that alleged future harms were too speculative. The judgment was therefore affirmed in part, reversed in part, and the case remanded for further proceedings on the surviving damages claims.
Circuit Split Identified
Legal Issue
Whether the public posting of a driver’s-license number on the dark web constitutes a concrete injury-in-fact under Article III after TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez.
Circuit Positions
Driver’s-license number disclosure on the dark web is a concrete Article III injury analogous to the public-disclosure tort.
Driver’s-license number disclosure is not sufficiently sensitive to constitute concrete injury; no standing.
Conflict Summary
The 4th, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Circuits hold that disclosure of a driver’s-license number on the dark web is closely analogous to the common-law tort of public disclosure of private facts and therefore satisfies the concrete-injury requirement for standing; the 7th Circuit (Baysal v. Midvale) holds the opposite, reasoning that a driver’s-license number is not sufficiently sensitive information to create concrete harm.