Hi, CIPAWorld! Kelly Sandberg here, with an interesting case getting tossed between the Northern District of California and the Napa County Superior Court for Article III standing issues.
If you have been following my blogs for some time, you will notice how often I discuss the importance of understanding Article III standing. This case explains why.
In Kaidi v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., Plaintiff Spencer Kaidi brought an action against T-Mobile USA, Inc. (“T-Mobile”) for allegedly violating the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”). Kaidi v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., No. 26-CV-05015-AMO, 2026 WL 3334730, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 4, 2026).
T-Mobile had removed the action from state court to federal court based on federal-question jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act on May 28, 2026. And they managed to squeeze by without ever discussing the issue of subject matter jurisdiction – specifically regarding Article III standing.
All was fine and dandy with the case proceeding forward until the Court questioned T-Mobile regarding whether Plaintiff’s complaint established Article III standing.
T-Mobile attempted to show that subject matter jurisdiction existed through Plaintiff’s alleged concrete injury, but the Court ultimately shut down all of T-Mobile’s arguments. T-Mobile argued that Plaintiff had alleged a sufficiently concrete injury similar to a privacy invasion actionable at common law pursuant to Popa v. Microsoft Corp., 153 F.4th 784 (9th Cir. 2025).
However, the Court noted that the Plaintiff’s claims in Popa were dismissed for lack of Article III standing because the information collected was not “embarrassing, invasive, or otherwise private,” and the same went for Plaintiff’s claims here.
T-Mobile also took a shot at arguing that Plaintiff’s complaint had alleged a “broken promise” which would support an injury in fact for CIPA claims, while relying on the cases of Spears v. The Campbell’s Soup Co., No. 26-cv-02385-TSH, 2026 WL 2654729 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 8, 2026), and Correia v. Lulu & Georgia, Inc., No. 3:26-cv-01186-GPC-JLB, 2026 WL 2343093 (S.D. Cal. Aug. 12, 2026).
The Court noted that both Spears and Correia were distinguishable from Plaintiff’s complaint because both of those cases exemplified a violation of the plaintiffs’ reasonable expectation of privacy because the plaintiffs had rejected tracking cookies on a defendant’s website, but the defendants had continued using tracking technology to gather plaintiffs’ information.
Because Plaintiff’s complaint failed to allege that he had rejected T-Mobile’s use of cookies while on the website, the Court found there was not an actionable broken promise – and thus no Article III standing that would allow the case to remain in federal court.
However, Plaintiff amended his complaint on July 27th, 2026, two months after the case was removed to federal court – but before the Court had ordered T-Mobile to show cause.
Want to guess what was added in this amended complaint?
Plaintiff had added in the amended complaint that he was presented with a cookie choice upon visiting the website, had selected reject cookies, but that T-Mobile’s third-party tracking cookies continued to gather his information as he browsed the website.
Now, this allegation would have added an extra leg to stand on!
From the proceedings timeline, it appears that T-Mobile had “failed” to discuss whether Article III standing existed when removing the case to federal court. It’s possible they considered potentially bringing a Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss the claim for lack of Article III standing later on while in federal court.
Plaintiffs then likely caught their mistake of having failed to initially allege a concrete injury and amended it relatively quickly to avoid this problem.
Perhaps the judge caught this change in the amended complaint and ordered T-Mobile to show cause that Article III standing existed for the Court’s subject matter jurisdiction, suspicious of their tactics, but this is just my own personal theory.
Either way, the important takeaway to note here is that understanding how Article III standing applies to CIPA claims is imperative! It might be a little repetitive to read, but it is a basic foundation that must be understood if attorneys are operating in federal courts.