T-Mobile, Store 'Negligently Breached Duties' They Owed to Plaintiff, Says Filing

T-Mobile and Wireless Vision’s Feb. 20 motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim should be denied in its entirety, said plaintiff Jane Doe in an opposition (docket 4:23-cv-05166) filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington in Richland. Doe’s November complaint alleges a T-Mobile employee downloaded, without her consent, private images and videos from a cellphone she traded in at a T-Mobile store in a Washington mall. Doe properly establishes claims against the defendants based on the actions of their employee, De'aundre Gomez, whose access and dissemination of Jane’s “explicit media occurred within the scope of his employment,” and Washington’s Unauthorized Disclosure of Intimate Images Act permits claims against corporate defendants, it said. The federal civil action related to disclosure of intimate images also permits claims based on vicarious liability, it said. The defendants negligently breached duties they owed to Doe, a customer, and they owed a duty of care to her, it said. Doe’s negligence claim is “distinct and not duplicative” and her damages are cognizable, it said. The plaintiff pleads her negligent misrepresentation claim with particularity, it said. When she traded in her phone for a credit toward a new one and agreed to have the defendants transfer her data, she “reasonably relied” on their “false representation,” made through their in-store procedures and online privacy notice, that “they securely handle sensitive customer data and devices,” it said. Doe's “detailed allegations in the amended complaint give notice of the exact misconduct alleged, that in affixing a sticker to the front of Doe’s old phone, “placing it in bubble wrap, and storing it out of reach,” defendants “failed to protect Jane’s sensitive information from exploitation,” it said. Defendants failed to implement “effective common-sense security hardware or software to protect consumers from their data and privacy being exploited during ordinary transactions at their retail stores,” it said. Defendants’ representations that T-Mobile’s policies protect customers’ data is “false,” said the opposition. “Defendants know that its retail employees routinely steal customers’ data and exploit their privacy during device upgrades and trade-ins,” yet they have neglected to improve their procedures to hire and supervise responsible employees or to impose “checks and balances via technology” to deter unlawful incidents, the opposition said.