Published
October 7, 2026
Federal courts dismissed or sent back to state court a series of class actions in 2025 and 2026 — against Bass Pro Shops, GameStop, apartment landlord UDR and a Puerto Rico hospital among them — without deciding whether the defendants did anything wrong, because the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction or the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing. The Supreme Court's Royal Canin ruling and its TransUnion rule that every class member needs standing to recover damages sit behind most of these outcomes.
Jurisdiction Comes Before Everything Else
Subject matter jurisdiction is a court's power to hear a kind of case at all. State courts of general jurisdiction can hear almost anything. Federal courts can hear only what the Constitution and Congress allow: cases arising under federal law, cases between citizens of different states with more than $75,000 at stake, and — for class actions — cases that qualify under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), which generally requires at least 100 class members, more than $5 million in controversy and at least one class member from a different state than a defendant. The background on those doors into federal court is in OCA's explainer on federal vs. state court and the CAFA glossary entry.Article III standing is part of the same inquiry. Federal courts may decide only real "cases" and "controversies," so a plaintiff must show an injury in fact that is concrete and particularized, traceable to the defendant, and likely to be redressed by the court. A plaintiff who cannot make that showing is not in a federal case at all, however strong the underlying claim might be. The Article III standing glossary entry covers the three elements.
Three features make jurisdiction different from every other defense. The parties cannot agree to it or waive it. A court must raise it on its own, at any stage, including for the first time on appeal. And because a court without jurisdiction has no power to decide the merits, a jurisdictional dismissal is ordinarily entered without prejudice — and a case that was removed from state court goes back there under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) rather than being dismissed.
The Rule Behind Most of These Rulings: TransUnion v. Ramirez
The modern line of class action standing decisions runs through two Supreme Court cases. In Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (2016), an FCRA suit over inaccurate data on a people-search website, the Court held that a bare procedural violation of a statute, divorced from any concrete harm, does not satisfy Article III. Five years later, TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez applied that principle to a class that had already won at trial.The TransUnion class was 8,185 people whose credit files carried an alert flagging them as a "potential match" to names on the Treasury Department's OFAC list of terrorists, drug traffickers and other serious criminals. A jury awarded each member $984.22 in statutory damages and $6,353.08 in punitive damages, a total of more than $60 million. The parties had stipulated, however, that TransUnion sent the misleading reports of only 1,853 of those people to third-party businesses during the class period.
In a 5–4 decision on June 25, 2021, the Supreme Court held that only those 1,853 had standing on the main claim. An inaccurate file that sits unseen in a database, the Court reasoned, is not a concrete harm. Its two most-quoted lines frame nearly every ruling that follows: "No concrete harm, no standing," and "Every class member must have Article III standing in order to recover individual damages."
Website Tracking Suits: Browsing Alone Was Not Enough
A large wave of privacy class actions alleges that "session replay" code on retail websites records visitors' clicks, keystrokes and searches without consent. The Third Circuit has now decided two of them on standing grounds.In Cook v. GameStop, Inc. (Aug. 7, 2025), a website visitor alleged that Microsoft's Clarity code on gamestop.com captured her mouse movements, clicks, searches and the items she added to her cart, in violation of Pennsylvania's wiretap law. The court held that she alleged no concrete injury because she entered no sensitive information. A legislature can elevate real harms into legally actionable ones, the panel wrote, but it may not "enact an injury into existence." The dismissal was affirmed, though converted from with prejudice to without prejudice.
On May 11, 2026, the same court applied GameStop to the multidistrict litigation over the Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's websites, In re BPS Direct, LLC. The result split the plaintiffs. Six who allegedly only browsed the sites lacked standing. Two who allegedly made purchases and typed in complete credit or debit card numbers did have standing, because capturing that data bears a close relationship to the traditional privacy tort of intrusion upon seclusion. The court reversed as to the purchasers and again converted the browsers' dismissals to without prejudice. The allegations against BPS remain unproven.
Data Breach Suits: Exposure Versus Misuse
Data breach class actions turn on a recurring question: is having personal information stolen an injury by itself, or does a plaintiff need to show the data was actually misused? Three recent rulings show how the answer plays out.In Holmes v. Elephant Insurance Co. (4th Cir., Oct. 14, 2025), hackers allegedly exploited an online insurance-quote tool that auto-filled driver's license numbers, compromising information on nearly 3 million people. The Fourth Circuit held that plaintiffs whose license numbers were allegedly posted on the dark web had standing, by analogy to the common-law tort of public disclosure of private facts. Plaintiffs without that publication, relying on risk of future harm or time spent on mitigation, did not. The court affirmed in part and reversed in part, reviving part of the case.
In Santos-Pagán v. Bayamón Medical Center (1st Cir., June 11, 2026), a hospital patient alleged that a 2019 ransomware attack exposed the data of 522,493 patients, and that afterward a cellphone account was opened in her name and she spent about $800 repairing her credit. The First Circuit treated that as an injury but held it was not plausibly traceable to the hospital's breach, and affirmed dismissal for lack of standing. The district court had separately found that CAFA's minimal-diversity requirement was not shown.
On Aug. 27, 2026, a federal judge in Maryland dismissed In re Healthcare Interactive, Inc. Data Breach Litigation, a class action over a July 2025 breach at a health-benefits software company, because the complaint did not allege actual misuse traceable to the breach. Without a concrete injury, the court held, plaintiffs cannot "manufacture standing" by spending money on credit monitoring or other protective steps. The dismissal was without prejudice, with time to seek leave to amend.
Standing Now Follows the Class Through the Case
TransUnion left open how and when unnamed class members must prove standing. The courts of appeals have spent 2025 and 2026 filling that gap.In Healy v. Milliman, Inc. (9th Cir., Jan. 9, 2026), an FCRA class challenged medical and prescription-history reports that Milliman sells to life insurers, alleging that a "fuzzy matching" process pulled other people's records into applicants' reports. The district court had dismissed the certified class because the plaintiff offered no direct evidence that unnamed members were harmed. The Ninth Circuit agreed that after certification, both named and unnamed members "must present evidence of standing at summary judgment," but held the ordinary summary-judgment standard applies — so circumstantial evidence can be enough. It reversed and remanded, keeping the class alive.
In Freeman v. Progressive Direct Insurance Co. (4th Cir., Aug. 25, 2025), a South Carolina class challenged "Projected Sold Adjustments" that Progressive allegedly used to lower total-loss vehicle payouts. In a 2–1 decision, the Fourth Circuit held that the named plaintiff lacked standing because she did not show a harmful breach in her own claim, and separately that individual questions defeated class treatment. Class certification was reversed.
The Supreme Court had a chance to settle the largest open question and declined. Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings v. Davis asked whether a federal court may certify a damages class that includes members who were never injured. The class was legally blind Californians who allegedly could not use LabCorp's touchscreen check-in kiosks, suing under the ADA and California's Unruh Act. After full briefing and argument, the Court on June 5, 2025 dismissed the case as improvidently granted, leaving the Ninth Circuit's certification in place. Justice Kavanaugh dissented alone; he would have held that such a class cannot be certified, grounding his view in the class certification rule rather than Article III, and noted potential exposure of up to about $500 million per year.
Removal Fights: How Cases Get Sent Back to State Court
Defendants usually prefer federal court and remove state-court class actions there when they can. Jurisdiction cuts both ways, though, and several recent rulings sent removed cases back.Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc. v. Wullschleger (Jan. 15, 2025) started as a Missouri state-court class action alleging that Royal Canin and Nestlé Purina sold prescription-only dog food at a premium even though it allegedly contained no medication. The complaint mentioned the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and the defendants removed. The plaintiff then amended to delete every federal reference. A unanimous Supreme Court held that "When an amendment excises the federal-law claims that enabled removal, the federal court loses its supplemental jurisdiction over the related state-law claims," and the case "must therefore return to state court."
The Ninth Circuit extended that logic to CAFA in Faulk v. JELD-WEN, Inc. (Nov. 14, 2025). An Alaska couple filed a class action in state court over allegedly defective windows, the defendants removed under CAFA, and the plaintiffs then dropped all class allegations. Because the couple and a local building-supply defendant were both Alaskan, no other basis for federal jurisdiction remained. The court held its earlier rule — that CAFA jurisdiction is locked in at the moment of removal — was "overruled by Royal Canin," vacated the federal dismissal and ordered a remand unless the defendants could show another basis for jurisdiction.
Jackson v. UDR, Inc. (D.D.C., July 15, 2026) shows the tactic running in reverse. A former tenant sued in D.C. Superior Court alleging that the landlord's $250 pre-lease "Holding Deposit" and a $1,250 lease-transfer fee violated D.C. law. UDR removed the case under CAFA and then moved to dismiss for lack of standing. The court agreed the tenant lacked standing — the holding deposit was credited to his security deposit, and he was never charged the transfer fee — but instead of dismissing, it remanded the case to Superior Court as § 1447(c) requires. Addressing the defendant's strategy of removing and then challenging standing, the court noted that "UDR itself started the game." The allegations have not been proven.
Timing matters too. In Creason v. Elanco US Inc. (7th Cir., June 29, 2026), an Indiana wage class action over an employee "vacation buy" program was removed under CAFA. The Seventh Circuit said CAFA's home-state exception — which applies when most of the class and the main defendant are from the state where the case was filed — appeared to fit, and that an earlier remand motion would likely have succeeded. But the plaintiff moved to remand almost a year after removal, after substantial federal proceedings, so the denial of remand stood. The court joined other circuits in holding that a motion invoking the CAFA exceptions must be made within a reasonable time, not the strict 30-day deadline for other remand motions.
A Standing Dismissal Is Not Always the End
Because a jurisdictional dismissal does not reach the merits, the claims can come back. The PayPal Honey browser-extension litigation is the clearest recent example. A group of YouTubers and other online creators sued PayPal alleging that the Honey extension swapped in its own affiliate tracking at checkout and took commissions they had earned. On Nov. 21, 2025, Judge Beth Labson Freeman of the Northern District of California dismissed the first amended complaint for lack of standing, finding that it did not allege the creators' contract terms with merchants or show that any named plaintiff actually lost a commission. The plaintiffs amended, and on June 22, 2026 the court denied PayPal's motion to dismiss the second amended complaint. PayPal answered the amended complaint in July 2026, and the allegations remain unproven; a jury trial is set for October 2027. The case is covered on OCA's PayPal Honey lawsuit page.The other rulings above leave similar openings. The GameStop and Bass Pro browsing plaintiffs were dismissed without prejudice; the Puerto Rico-law claims in the hospital breach case were dismissed without prejudice; and the Maryland data breach court allowed a request to amend. Removed cases like UDR's and JELD-WEN's continue in state court, where Article III's limits do not apply in the same way — state courts set their own standing rules.
The 2025–2026 Rulings at a Glance
| Case | Jurisdictional issue | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Canin v. Wullschleger (U.S. Supreme Court, Jan. 2025) | Federal claims deleted after removal | Case returned to Missouri state court |
| LabCorp v. Davis (U.S. Supreme Court, June 2025) | Uninjured class members | Dismissed without a decision; certification stands |
| Cook v. GameStop (3d Cir., Aug. 2025) | Session replay, no sensitive data | No standing; dismissed without prejudice |
| Freeman v. Progressive (4th Cir., Aug. 2025) | Named plaintiff's own injury | Class certification reversed |
| Holmes v. Elephant Insurance (4th Cir., Oct. 2025) | Data breach, dark-web posting | Partly revived for dark-web plaintiffs |
| Faulk v. JELD-WEN (9th Cir., Nov. 2025) | Class allegations dropped after CAFA removal | Remand to Alaska state court ordered |
| In re PayPal Honey (N.D. Cal., Nov. 2025 / June 2026) | Lost commissions not alleged | Dismissed, then revived on amendment |
| Healy v. Milliman (9th Cir., Jan. 2026) | Evidence of class-wide standing | Class reinstated; circumstantial proof allowed |
| In re BPS Direct (Bass Pro / Cabela's) (3d Cir., May 2026) | Session replay, browsers vs. buyers | Buyers have standing; browsers do not |
| Santos-Pagán v. Bayamón Medical Center (1st Cir., June 2026) | Traceability of identity fraud | Dismissal affirmed |
| Creason v. Elanco (7th Cir., June 2026) | CAFA home-state exception raised late | Remand denied; stayed in federal court |
| Jackson v. UDR (D.D.C., July 2026) | Removed, then no standing | Remanded to D.C. Superior Court |
| In re Healthcare Interactive (D. Md., Aug. 2026) | Data breach, no alleged misuse | Dismissed without prejudice |
What to Watch Next
The question LabCorp left unanswered — whether a damages class can be certified when some members were never injured — remains open nationally, and the circuits continue to approach it differently. On Sept. 29, 2026, the Supreme Court granted review in Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D., a class case over the government's third-country deportation policy, and directed argument on whether the district court had jurisdiction over the claims and authority to grant classwide relief; argument is set for Dec. 9, 2026. It is an immigration case rather than a consumer one, but its answer on classwide relief could reach other class actions as well.Free settlement alerts
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is subject matter jurisdiction in a class action?
Subject matter jurisdiction is a court's power to hear a type of case at all. Federal courts can hear a class action only when it raises a federal-law claim, meets ordinary diversity rules, or qualifies under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), which generally requires at least 100 class members, more than $5 million in controversy and minimal diversity. Article III standing — a concrete injury traceable to the defendant that a court can redress — is part of the same question. The parties cannot waive it, and a court must raise it on its own.
Does a dismissal for lack of standing mean the company did nothing wrong?
A dismissal for lack of standing or jurisdiction does not decide whether the defendant broke the law. It means the court lacked power to rule on the claims. For that reason such dismissals are generally entered without prejudice — the Third Circuit changed with-prejudice standing dismissals to without-prejudice dismissals in both the 2025 GameStop case and the 2026 Bass Pro Shops case.
Does every class member need Article III standing?
In TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez (2021), the Supreme Court held that every class member must have Article III standing to recover individual damages. In January 2026 the Ninth Circuit held in Healy v. Milliman that unnamed class members must present evidence of standing at summary judgment, though ordinary summary-judgment rules apply. Whether a class that includes uninjured members can be certified in the first place remains unresolved: the Supreme Court dismissed Laboratory Corp. of America v. Davis in June 2025 without deciding it.
What happens to a removed class action when the federal court finds no jurisdiction?
When a case was removed from state court, 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) requires the federal court to send it back to state court if jurisdiction is lacking. In July 2026 a D.C. federal judge did exactly that in an apartment-fee class action against UDR, Inc.: after finding the former tenant lacked standing, the court remanded the case to D.C. Superior Court instead of dismissing it.
Are data breach class actions dismissed for lack of standing?
Some are and some are not, and the line usually turns on misuse. In 2026 the First Circuit affirmed dismissal of a hospital ransomware case because the alleged fraud was not plausibly traceable to that breach, and a Maryland federal court dismissed a health-software breach case for lack of alleged misuse. In 2025 the Fourth Circuit revived claims in the Elephant Insurance breach case for people whose driver's license numbers allegedly appeared on the dark web, while rejecting standing for those without that publication.
Can a plaintiff keep a class action out of federal court by dropping claims?
Under Royal Canin U.S.A. v. Wullschleger (January 2025), when a plaintiff amends a removed complaint to delete the federal-law claims that supported removal, the federal court loses supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims and the case returns to state court. In November 2025 the Ninth Circuit applied the same reasoning to CAFA in Faulk v. JELD-WEN, ordering a window-defect case back to Alaska state court after the class allegations were dropped.
Sources
• Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc. v. Wullschleger, No. 23-677 (U.S. Jan. 15, 2025) — Supreme Court opinion• Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings v. Davis, No. 24-304 (U.S. June 5, 2025) — per curiam and dissent
• TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, No. 20-297 (U.S. June 25, 2021) — Supreme Court opinion
• Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016) — Justia
• Cook v. GameStop, Inc., No. 23-2574 (3d Cir. Aug. 7, 2025) — opinion
• In re BPS Direct, LLC; Cabela's, LLC Wiretapping Litigation, No. 23-3235 (3d Cir. May 11, 2026) — opinion
• Holmes v. Elephant Insurance Co., No. 23-1782 (4th Cir. Oct. 14, 2025) — CourtListener
• Santos-Pagán v. Bayamón Medical Center, No. 24-2018 (1st Cir. June 11, 2026) — GovInfo
• In re Healthcare Interactive, Inc. Data Breach Litigation, No. 1:25-cv-04034-SAG (D. Md. Aug. 27, 2026) — memorandum opinion
• Healy v. Milliman, Inc., No. 24-3327 (9th Cir. Jan. 9, 2026) — opinion
• Freeman v. Progressive Direct Insurance Co., No. 24-1684 (4th Cir. Aug. 25, 2025) — opinion
• Faulk v. JELD-WEN, Inc., No. 24-4078 (9th Cir. Nov. 14, 2025) — opinion
• Jackson v. UDR, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-00351-JEB (D.D.C. July 15, 2026) — memorandum opinion
• Creason v. Elanco US Inc., No. 25-1552 (7th Cir. June 29, 2026) — Justia
• In re PayPal Honey Browser Extension Litigation, No. 5:24-cv-09470-BLF (N.D. Cal.) — CourtListener docket
• Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D., No. 26-426 — questions presented (U.S. Supreme Court)
• 28 U.S.C. § 1447 — Cornell Legal Information Institute
About This Page
OpenClassActions.com is a consumer news and information site, not a law firm. This article is general information about subject matter jurisdiction and Article III standing in class actions. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
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