1 Bender on Privacy and Data Protection § 23.22 (2020)
In 2004 a California state trial court approved a proposed class action settlement
1 in the amount of $9.6 million in a suit alleging causes for invasion of privacy, unjust enrichment, and violations of
Cal. Civ. Code §§ 2223,
2224,
2 and
Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200.
3 Plaintiffs charged that over a period of several years defendant bank unlawfully disclosed to third parties for marketing purposes private customer personal financial information. The purported class numbered between six and seven million California customers of the bank who were allegedly subject to the charged improper disclosure. The class notice indicated that defendant was unable to identify the customers whose information was subject to the conduct. In the settlement defendant admitted no wrongdoing and maintained that the sharing was done with consent and was proper. The settlement required defendant to pay more than $3 million to various charities, to provide one month’s free online bill paying service to each customer, to continue for 15 months an existing practice of refraining from sharing certain information whose sharing was permitted under federal law.
4 Several privacy advocacy groups contended that the settlement was inappropriate, one reason being that none of the charities selected were concerned about consumer privacy. The trial court’s approval was appealed, and the intermediate appellate court affirmed.
5Footnotes — § 23.22:
1 Lamb v. Wells Fargo Bank, No. 306149 (Cal. Super. Ct., San Francisco Co., approved 23 Aug. 2004).
2 Section 2223 provides: “One who wrongfully detains a thing is an involuntary trustee thereof, for the benefit of the owner.”
Section 2224 provides: “One who gains a thing by fraud, accident, mistake, undue influence, the violation of a trust, or other wrongful act, is, unless he or she has some other and better right thereto, an involuntary trustee of the thing gained, for the benefit of the person who would otherwise have had it.”
3 Section 17200 provides: “As used in this chapter, unfair competition shall mean and include any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice and unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising and any act prohibited by Chapter 1 (commencing with Section 17500) of Part 3 of Division 7 of the Business and Professions Code.”
4 The court also authorized attorneys’ fees and costs in the amount of $2.85 million.
5 Lamb. v. Wells Fargo Bank (1st App. Dist, Div. 3, 11 Apr. 2006) (not for publication).