Arrington v. Richardson

• Decision Date: 01 October 2009
• Docket Number: No. C09-4049-MWB.,C09-4049-MWB.
• Citation: 660 F.Supp.2d 1024
• Parties: Angela ARRINGTON, Individually and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiff, v. Nancy J. RICHARDSON, Director, Iowa Department of Transportation, Mark Lowe, Director, Iowa Motor Vehicle Division, and John Does 1-10, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Iowa

660 F.Supp.2d 1024

Angela ARRINGTON, Individually and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiff, v. Nancy J. RICHARDSON, Director, Iowa Department of Transportation, Mark Lowe, Director, Iowa Motor Vehicle Division, and John Does 1-10, Defendants.

No. C09-4049-MWB.

United States District Court, N.D. Iowa, Western Division.

October 1, 2009.

Christopher P. Welsh, Welsh & Welsh, PC, LLO, Omaha, NE, for Plaintiff.

David Steven Gorham, Iowa Attorney General, Teresa K. Baumann, Iowa Attorney General's Office, Ames, IA, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER REGARDING DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS

MARK W. BENNETT, District Judge.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

                I. BACKGROUND...........................................................1026
                   A. Procedural Background.............................................1026
                   B. Factual Background................................................1027
                II. ANALYSIS............................................................1027
                    A. Standards for a Motion to Dismiss................................1027
                    B. Arrington's § 1983 Claim....................................1025
                

                1. Arguments of the Parties.........................................1028
                       a. Defendants' arguments.........................................1028
                       b. Arrington's arguments.........................................1029
                    2. Analysis.........................................................1030
                       a. The DPPA asserts a federal right..............................1031
                       b. Congressional foreclosure of § 1983 enforcement..........1032
                       c. Other precedent...............................................1035
                III. CONCLUSION.........................................................1037
                

A licenced Iowa driver brings suit, individually and on behalf of a class, against the director of the Iowa Department of Transportation ("IDOT"), the director of the Iowa Motor Vehicle Division ("IMVD"), and ten John Does. According to the driver, personal information that she and other licensed Iowa drivers provided to the IDOT and/or IMVD was disclosed, sold, or otherwise disseminated in violation of the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2721, et seq. ("DPPA"). The driver claims that these actions give rise to a cause of action under the DPPA and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The IDOT and IMVD directors, however, have moved to dismiss the § 1983 count, as they allege that the privacy rights the DPPA creates are not separately enforceable under § 1983—they argue that the DPPA's remedial scheme evidences Congress's intent to make the DPPA's remedies the exclusive remedies for violations of the DPPA. The court must, in order to decide this Motion to Dismiss, decide whether the privacy rights Congress created under the DPPA are enforceable under § 1983.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Procedural Background

On June 11, 2009, Plaintiff Angela Arrington filed her Class Action Complaint with Jury Trial Demanded (docket no. 1) with this court. In Arrington's complaint, she claims that Nancy Richardson, Director of the IDOT and Mark Lowe, Director of the IMVD ("Defendants"), and John Does 1-10¹ violated the law when they provided personal information pertaining to Arrington, and the putative class members, to Source for Public Data, LP ("Public Data") and Shadowsoft, Inc. ("Shadow soft"). According to Arrington, these third parties sold and/or otherwise disseminated the information over the internet. Arrington claims that the Defendants' actions violated the DPPA (count 1) and that the statutory right to privacy provided in the DPPA may also be enforced under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (count 2).

On August 21, 2009, Defendants filed their Motion to Dismiss (docket no. 9) and Brief in Support of Motion to Dismiss (docket no. 9-2). In Defendants' motion, they claim that count 2 should be dismissed, as the DPPA cannot be separately enforced under § 1983. According to Defendants, the DPPA contains a comprehensive remedial scheme, which implies a congressional intent to preclude plaintiffs from enforcing the privacy right provided by the DPPA under § 1983.

Arrington filed her Response to Defendants' Motion to Dismiss with Suggestions in Support (docket no. 10) on September 4, 2009. In Arrington's response, she argues that the remedial provisions of the DPPA and § 1983 are complementary rather than conflicting and, therefore, the DPPA's statutory right to privacy is enforceable under § 1983.

B. Factual Background²

Arrington, and the putative class, are licensed drivers in Iowa, who provided "personal information" (as defined by the DPPA, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2721, et seq.) to the IDOT and IMVD. The IDOT and IMVD provided the personal information from these drivers to Shadowsoft,³ in the form of a large database—the database contained personal information from tens of thousands of licensed drivers in the State of Iowa. This personal information was then transferred to Public Data,⁴ which made the information available for search and sale on its website, www.publicdata. com. At no time did Arrington or any other putative class members provide their express consent for this information to be disseminated.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standards for a Motion to Dismiss

Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides for a motion to dismiss on the basis of "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted."⁵ In a recent decision, Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007), the Supreme Court revisited the standards for determining whether factual allegations are sufficient to survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss:

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires only "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief," in order to "give the defendant fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests," Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957). While a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss does not need detailed factual allegations, ibid.; Sanjuan v. American Bd. of Psychiatry and Neurology, Inc., 40 F.3d 247, 251 (C.A.7 1994), a plaintiff's obligation to provide the "grounds" of his "entitle[ment] to relief" requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do, see Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286, 106 S.Ct. 2932, 92 L.Ed.2d 209 (1986) (on a motion to dismiss, courts "are not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation"). Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level, see 5 C Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1216, pp. 235-236 (3d ed. 2004) (hereinafter Wright & Miller) ("[T]he pleading must contain something more . . . than . . . a statement of facts that merely creates a suspicion [of] a legally cognizable right of action"), on the ASSUMPTION THAT ALL THE allegations in the complaint are true (even if doubtful in fact), see, e.g., Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506, 508, n. 1, 122 S.Ct. 992, 152 L.Ed.2d 1 (2002); Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 327, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 104 L.Ed.2d 338 (1989) ("Rule 12(b)(6) does not countenance . . . dismissals based on a judge's disbelief of a complaint's factual allegations"); Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974) (a well-pleaded complaint may proceed even if it appears "that a recovery is very remote and unlikely").

Bell Atlantic, 550 U.S. at 555-56, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (internal citations to footnotes omitted); see Ashcroft v. Iqbal, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (instructing that "short and plain statement" requirement "demands more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed me accusation."). Thus, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has recognized that, under Bell Atlantic, "To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain factual allegations sufficient `to raise a right to relief above the speculative level. . . .'" Parkhurst v. Tabor, 569 F.3d 861, 865 (8th Cir.2009) (quoting Bell Atlantic, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955). To put it another way, "the complaint must allege `only enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'" B & B Hardware, Inc. v. Hargis Indus., Inc., 569 F.3d 383, 387 (8th Cir.2009) (quoting Bell Atlantic, 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955); accord Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949 ("Where a complaint pleads facts that are `merely consistent with' a defendant's liability, it `stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility of entitlement to relief.'") (quoting Bell Atlantic, 550 U.S. at 557, 127 S.Ct. 1955).

Nevertheless, the court must still "accept as true the plaintiff's well pleaded allegations." Parkhurst, 569 F.3d at 865 (citing Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 326-27, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 104 L.Ed.2d 338 (1989)); B & B Hardware, Inc., 569 F.3d at 387 ("[W]e `assume[ ] as true all factual allegations of the complaint'" (quoting Levy v. Ohl, 477 F.3d 988, 991 (8th Cir. 2007)). The court must also still "construe the complaint liberally in the light most favorable to the plaintiff." Eckert v. Titan Tire Corp., 514 F.3d 801, 806 (8th Cir. 2008) (post-Bell Atlantic decision). On the other hand, "[w]here the allegations show on the face of the complaint that there is some insuperable bar to relief, dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) is [still] appropriate." Benton v. Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., 524 F.3d 866, 870 (8th Cir.2008) (citing Parnes v. Gateway 2000, Inc., 122 F.3d 539, 546 (8th Cir.1997)), for this standard in a discussion of Rule 12(b)(6) standards in light of Bell Atlantic).

B. Arrington's § 1983 Claim

1. Arguments of the Parties

a. Defendants' arguments

Defendants claim that Arrington's § 1983 claim should be dismissed, because the DPPA's comprehensive remedial scheme evidences Congress's intent to preclude plaintiffs from enforcing the...