Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-12-55234/USCOURTS-ca9-12-55234-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JOHN SINIBALDI and NICOLLE

DISIMONE, individually and on

behalf of all others similarly

situated,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

REDBOX AUTOMATED RETAIL, LLC,

a Delaware limited liability

company,

Defendant-Appellee.

No. 12-55234

D.C. No.

2:11-cv-02936-

JHN-E

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Jacqueline H. Nguyen, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

January 8, 2014—Pasadena, California

Filed June 6, 2014

Before: Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, and Stephen Reinhardt

and Richard R. Clifton, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Clifton;

Dissent by Judge Reinhardt

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2 SINIBALDI V. REDBOX

SUMMARY*

California’s Song-Beverly Credit Card Act 

The panel affirmed the district court’s Fed. R. Civ. P.

12(b)(6) dismissal of a putative class action alleging that

Redbox Automated Retail, LLC, violated California’s SongBeverly Credit Card Act of 1971.

The Song-Beverly Credit Card Act prohibits retailers

from collecting personal identification information in

connection with credit card transactions. Redbox operates

self-service kiosks, and it requires customers who obtain

movie or video game discs from the kiosks to provide their

ZIP codes.

The panel held that Redbox’s alleged conduct did not

violate the Act. The panel concluded that Redbox’s

collection of personal information in connection with the

kiosk rental transaction fell outside the reach of § 1747.08(a)

of the Act, because it fell within the exception of Cal. Civ.

Code § 1747.08(c)(1) where the customer’s credit card was

used as a deposit to secure payment in the event of loss or late

return.

Judge Reinhardt dissented because he did not believe that

the Redbox credit card transactions fit within the exception at

issue in Cal. Civ. Code § 1747.08(c)(1).

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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SINIBALDI V. REDBOX 3

COUNSEL

Christopher P. Ridout, Devon M. Lyon, and Caleb LH

Marker, Ridout Lyon + Ottoson, LLP, Long Beach,

California, for Plaintiff-Appellant Nicolle DiSimone, and

Daniel H. Qualls, Robin G. Workman (argued), and Aviva N.

Roller, Qualls & Workman, LLP, San Francisco, California,

for Plaintiff-Appellant John Sinibaldi.

Donald J. Kula, Perkins Coie, LLP, Los Angeles, California,

and Thomas L. Boeder, Amanda J. Beane, Eric D. Miller

(argued), and Ryan T. Mrazik, Perkins Coie, LLP, Seattle,

Washington, for Defendant-Appellee.

OPINION

CLIFTON, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiffs John Sinibaldi and Nicolle DiSimone appeal the

dismissal of a putative class action alleging violations of

California’s Song-Beverly Credit Card Act of 1971, which

prohibits retailers from collecting personal identification

information in connection with credit card transactions. See

Cal. Civ. Code § 1747.08. Defendant Redbox Automated

Retail, LLC operates self-service kiosks throughout

California and elsewhere in the United States. Customers use

the kiosks to rent movies and video games, using credit and

debit cards to pay the charges. As part of the process,

Redbox requires customers who obtain discs from the kiosks

to provide their ZIP codes. Plaintiffs allege that, by imposing

that requirement on customers using credit cards in

California, Redbox has violated the Act.

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4 SINIBALDI V. REDBOX

We conclude that Redbox’s alleged conduct does not

violate the Act. The statute exempts certain transactions,

including those where “the credit card is being used as a

deposit to secure payment in the event of default, loss,

damage, or similar occurrence.” Cal. Civ. Code

§ 1747.08(c)(1). The Redbox transaction fits within that

exception. We affirm the dismissal of the action.

I. Background

Redbox owns and operates more than 30,000 kiosks

nationwide. The kiosks are usually located outside retail

locations, including grocery stores, drug stores, and fast-food

restaurants. Living up to the name, each Redbox kiosk is

bright red. It can hold approximately 630 discs representing

200 unique movie titles or video games. No employee is

present to tend to the kiosk on an ongoing basis. The

transaction with the customer is fully automated.

To rent a movie or game at a Redbox kiosk, the customer

uses a touch screen to select from the titles displayed. After

selecting one or more titles and proceeding to the check-out

screen, the customer is prompted to swipe a credit or debit

card through a built-in card reader. The kiosk screen then

displays the following statement: “For security reasons,

please enter the ZIP code associated with your card’s billing

address, and press ‘ENTER.’” After the customer enters a 5-

digit number and the transaction representing one day’s worth

of charges clears, the kiosk vends the selected titles.1

1 According to the complaint, it is not necessary to enter the ZIP code

associated with the card’s billing address for the transaction to clear. If

the customer enters a random string of 5 digits, the kiosk will still accept

the card and vend the disc. Plaintiffs therefore allege that the collection

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SINIBALDI V. REDBOX 5

Most DVD rentals cost $1 per day. At the time of the

rental, the customer’s card is charged the fee for one day. A

customer may keep a rented disc longer at the same daily rate. 

When the customer returns the disc, the customer’s credit

card is charged for any additional days beyond the initial oneday rental period, up to a maximum of $25 for DVDs, $34.50

for Blu-ray discs, and $60 for video games. If the disc is not

returned before the maximum fee is reached, the customer’s

credit card is charged that maximum fee. These additional

charges are processed automatically from the credit card

information on file. The customer is not required to swipe a

credit card or enter a ZIP code upon returning rentals.

Based on these facts, Plaintiffs allege that Redbox

violated § 1747.08 of the Act by requesting personal

identification information in connection with a credit card

transaction. Section 1747.08(a) provides that “no . . .

corporation that accepts credit cards for the transaction of

business shall . . . [r]equest, or require as a condition to

accepting the credit card as payment in full or in part for

goods or services, the cardholder to provide personal

identification information.”2 The California Supreme Court

of personal information in the form of a ZIP code is not for security

purposes but rather for market research: specifically, to determine where

to locate future Redbox kiosks. We accept this allegation as true but do

not discuss its implications because our holding does not depend on what

Redbox does with the information it collects.

 

2

 The full text reads:

(a) Except as provided in subdivision (c), no person,

firm, partnership, association, or corporation that

accepts credit cards for the transaction of business shall

do any of the following:

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6 SINIBALDI V. REDBOX

has held that a ZIP code is personal identification information

within the meaning of § 1747.08. Pineda v. WilliamsSonoma Stores, Inc., 246 P.3d 612 (Cal. 2011). Redbox’s

request for a ZIP code prior to the completion of the rental

transaction is thus a request for personal identification

information within the meaning of the Act.

The district court held that the Act does not apply to

Redbox’s unmanned kiosk transactions because, in light of

the potential for fraud in such transactions, the legislature

could not have meant for them to fall within the statutory

privacy protection scheme. Mehrens v. Redbox Automated

Retail LLC, 2012 WL 77220 at *3–4 (C.D. Cal. Jan. 6, 2012)

(citing Saulic v. Symantec Corp., 596 F. Supp. 2d 1323,

1333–34 (C.D. Cal. 2009)). See also Apple, Inc. v. Superior

(1) Request, or require as a condition to accepting

the credit card as payment in full or in part for

goods or services, the cardholder to write any

personal identification information upon the credit

card transaction form or otherwise.

(2) Request, or require as a condition to accepting

the credit card as payment in full or in part for

goods or services, the cardholder to provide

personal identification information, which the . . .

corporation accepting the credit card writes, causes

to be written, or otherwise records upon the credit

card transaction form or otherwise.

(3) Utilize, in any credit card transaction, a credit

card form which contains preprinted spaces

specifically designated for filling in any personal

identification information of the cardholder.

Cal. Civ. Code § 1747.08(a). We take no position as to whether Redbox’s

alleged conduct falls under any or all subsections of § 1747.08(a).

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SINIBALDI V. REDBOX 7

Court, 292 P.3d 883, 884 (Cal. 2013) (holding that § 1747.08

does not apply to online purchases of electronically

downloadable products).

On appeal, Plaintiffs challenge the district court’s

holding, contending that § 1747.08 applies to Redbox kiosk

transactions because they are in-person, card-present

transactions that present less risk of fraud than online

purchases. We decline to decide that question. Instead, we

affirm on an alternative ground: the statute’s rental deposit

exception.

II. Discussion

We review dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) de novo. 

Metzler Inv. GMBH v. Corinthian Colleges, Inc., 540 F.3d

1049, 1061 (9th Cir. 2008). For this purpose, we accept

factual allegations in the complaint as true. Tellabs, Inc. v.

Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., 551 U.S. 308, 322 (2007). If

support exists in the record, a dismissal may be affirmed on

any proper ground. Johnson v. Riverside Healthcare Sys.,

LP, 534 F.3d 1116, 1121 (9th Cir. 2008).

The Act, in Section § 1747.08(a) of the California Civil

Code, prohibits the collection of personal information in

connection with a credit card transaction, “[e]xcept as

provided in subdivision (c).” Section 1747.08(c), in turn,

specifies that the prohibition in subdivision (a) does not apply

in certain instances.3 One of those instances is “[i]f the credit

 

3

 The full text of the subdivision reads:

(c) Subdivision (a) does not apply in the following

instances:

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8 SINIBALDI V. REDBOX

card is being used as a deposit to secure payment in the event

of default, loss, damage, or other similar occurrence.” Cal.

Civ. Code § 1747.08(c)(1).

(1) If the credit card is being used as a deposit to

secure payment in the event of default, loss,

damage, or other similar occurrence.

(2) Cash advance transactions.

(3) If any of the following applies:

(A) The person, firm, partnership, association,

or corporation accepting the credit card is

contractually obligated to provide personal

identification information in order to complete

the credit card transaction.

(B) The person, firm, partnership, association,

or corporation accepting the credit card in a

sales transaction at a retail motor fuel

dispenser or retail motor fuel payment island

automated cashier uses the Zip Code

information solely for prevention of fraud,

theft, or identity theft.

(C) The person, firm, partnership, association,

or corporation accepting the credit card is

obligated to collect and record the personal

identification information by federal or state

law or regulation.

(4) If personal identification information is

required for a special purpose incidental butrelated

to the individual credit card transaction, including,

but not limited to, information relating to shipping,

delivery, servicing, or installation of the purchased

merchandise, or for special orders.

Cal. Civ. Code § 1747.08(c)(1).

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SINIBALDI V. REDBOX 9

The California Supreme Court has not addressed the

scope of that exception. “When the state’s highest court has

not squarely addressed an issue, we must predict how [it]

would decide the issue using intermediate appellate court

decisions, decisions from other jurisdictions, statutes,

treatises and restatements for guidance.” Alliance for Prop.

Rights & Fiscal Responsibility v. City of Idaho Falls,

742 F.3d 1100, 1102 (9th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks

omitted). As we are aware of no intermediate appellate

decisions, decisions from other jurisdictions, treatises, or

restatements interpreting the rental deposit exception, we

focus on the language of the statute itself to predict how the

California Supreme Court would decide the issue, and

conclude that it would hold that the exception applies here.

When a customer swipes his credit card at a Redbox

kiosk, Redbox immediately charges the credit card for the

first day’s rental. Redbox also stores the credit card

information. The credit card information permits Redbox to

collect the additional amount owed should the customer

choose to keep the movie or game for additional days or if it

is never returned. In other words, the credit card is “being

used as a deposit to secure payment in the event of default,

loss, damage, or other similar occurrence.” We conclude that

the California Supreme Court would hold Redbox’s

collection of personal identification information in

connection with kiosk rental transactions exempt under

§ 1747.08(c)(1), if that court held such transactions were

covered under § 1747.08(a) in the first place.

Plaintiffs argue that the Redbox transaction does not

involve a “deposit” by defining the term “deposit” to mean “a

prospective, contingent payment of money or value to a seller

of goods or services to secure against some potential loss.”

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10 SINIBALDI V. REDBOX

To fit within § 1747.08(c)(1), Plaintiffs contend, Redbox

would have to charge the credit card a certain amount as a

“deposit” in advance and then credit any excess funds back

when the customer returns the DVD. If Redbox did that,

plaintiffs acknowledge, “an actual deposit would have

‘secure[d] payment in the event of default, loss, damage.’”

Because that is not what Redbox does, according to Plaintiffs,

the credit card is not being used by Redbox as a deposit.

We reject Plaintiffs’ artificiallynarrow definition of using

a credit card as a deposit to secure payment. Vendors such as

rental car companies, hotels, or Redbox, may use a

customer’s credit card to secure payment in multiple ways. 

One way would be in the manner acknowledged by Plaintiffs

to involve a deposit—charging the credit card a certain

amount in advance and refunding any excess when the

product is returned or the hotel room is vacated. But a credit

card can provide security whether or not money is drawn

from the credit card account in advance. A vendor can also

put a hold on part of the credit limit available under the credit

card, by “preauthorizing” a charge of that amount without

actually drawing those funds. A third variation, the one used

by Redbox, is simply to hold the credit card information on

file with the authorization to charge the card for any

additional amounts owing later. The different methods might

vary in their transaction costs, level of security, and the

amount of remaining credit balance available to the customer,

but in each instance the credit card is “being used as a deposit

to secure payment in the event of default, loss, damage, or

other similar occurrence.” All the methods fall within the

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SINIBALDI V. REDBOX 11

language of the statutory exclusion, both logically and

literally.

4

The dictionary definition of “deposit” also supports a

broader reading than that which Plaintiffs propose. That term

is defined in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary

(2002), for example, to include “something given as a pledge

or security.”5 The credit card of the Redbox customer is

given as a pledge or security, whether or not any funds are

actually drawn by Redbox from the customer’s account in

advance. Plaintiffs cite the online Merriam-Webster

Dictionary, defining “deposit” as “something placed for

safekeeping: as a) money deposited in a bank or b) money

given as a pledge or down payment.”6 Even under that

definition, though, the use of a credit card may qualify as

“something placed for safekeeping” or “given as a pledge.”

4

Indeed, if a transfer of money were required to constitute a “deposit,”

then it would arguably be the money drawn in advance that served as the

deposit, not the credit card. The Redbox method might fit the language of

the statutory exception more perfectly than the form of transaction

acknowledged by Plaintiffs to fit within the statutory exception because

Redbox is counting on the credit card to secure payment, not on money

that it has already debited from the customer’s credit card account.

 

5 Similarly, the Oxford American English Dictionary defines “deposit”

as “a sum payable as a first installment on the purchase of something or

as a pledge for a contract, the balance being payable later” (emphasis

added). See http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/

american_english/deposit (last visited April 11, 2014).

6 The citation provided by Plaintiffs is to Merriam-Webster, “Deposit,”

available at http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/deposit (last

visited June 28, 2013).

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12 SINIBALDI V. REDBOX

Plaintiffs cite additional illustrations provided along with

that definition by online Merriam-Webster Dictionary and

argue that “[e]ach definition and example involved

movement, a transfer of some kind.” But that is not

necessarily the case. One of the illustrations cited by

Plaintiffs is: “The rental car company requires a deposit for

drivers under the age of 25.” When a rental car customer

rents a car, the customer pledges the credit limit on his or her

credit card as a deposit. That is true even if the rental car

company does not actually draw money from the credit card

account in advance. Even in instances where the company

places a hold on some portion of the customer’s credit limit

under the card, the hold does not entail an actual transfer of

funds. Moreover, the actual charges may be more than the

hold amount should, for example, the car be damaged or

never returned. As long as the company can draw upon the

customer’s credit line later if necessary, the associated credit

card is serving to provide security to the rental car company.

When a Redbox customer swipes a credit card at the time

of rental, the customer promises to be responsible for

additional charges that might be owed if the disc is returned

late or not at all. That promise is secured with the credit card.

Redbox will use the credit card information already provided

by the customer to charge the customer’s credit card account

for the balance owed. In both literal and practical terms, the

credit card serves as security.

Plaintiffs argue that Redbox might not always succeed in

drawing upon a customer’s credit card later. They posit, for

example, the case of a customer who uses a credit card with

only $1.00 in available credit remaining to rent a DVD,

noting that Redbox would be unable to charge anything

further to that card in the future. Even in that rare scenario,

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SINIBALDI V. REDBOX 13

Redbox could charge something later if the customer made a

payment to bring down the outstanding credit card debt in the

meantime. More importantly, something deposited to secure

an obligation is pledged even if it turns out that it does not

have enough value to cover the obligation. A watch

presented to a pawn shop might be incorrectly valued and

turn out not to be worth the money paid out, or could turn out

to be stolen and be subsequently reclaimed by the rightful

owner, but that doesn’t mean that the watch was never

deposited at the pawn shop in the first place. The same is true

for Plaintiffs’ scenario: even if Redbox might not ultimately

be able to collect from the customer’s credit card in the

future, the credit card is being used as a deposit.

There is no reason to think that the legislature, in enacting

the statutory exception, limited it only to transactions where

money is actually drawn from the customer’s credit card

account in advance by the retailer, the form acknowledged by

Plaintiffs to fit within the definition. We see no reason to

differentiate between particular forms of credit card deposits,

whether they be a current transfer, a hold, or merely the

ability to run a charge in the future. Nothing indicates that

the legislature intended such a distinction, and Plaintiffs have

not provided a logical explanation for such a distinction. We

decline to read it into the statute.

The dissenting opinion presents an alternative theory for

why the rental deposit exception should not apply to the

Redbox transaction, but it is no more persuasive than the

argument offered by Plaintiffs. That theory is that, even if the

credit card is used as a deposit, none of the later charges by

Redbox to the customer’s credit card qualify under the

statutory exception because the various contingencies are all

part of the primary agreement between the customer and

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14 SINIBALDI V. REDBOX

Redbox. But the statutory exception is not limited to a

deposit to secure payment “in the event of default.” By its

terms, it also applies “in the event of . . . loss, damage, or

similar occurrence.” No breach of the agreement between the

customer and Redbox is required for the exception to apply.

Upon renting a DVD from Redbox, the customer agrees

to pay the fee for one day, and that is all that Redbox initially

charges the customer’s credit card. If the customer does not

return the DVD after the first day, for whatever reason, it is

effectively lost for each additional day because it is not

available to be rented to someone else. That the additional

charges, including the maximum cap, may be spelled out in

the Redbox agreement does not change that fact. It is not

beyond the contemplation of agreements between the parties

in other rental contexts—for a car, a hotel room, or

whatever—that a customer will be held responsible for loss

or damage or similar additional charges. Rental agreements

routinely provide that the renter is responsible for those

charges. The credit card provided by the customer

necessarily serves to secure any additional sum that might

become owing. To say that additional charges are not

covered because theymight be contemplated in the agreement

between the parties is to read the exception so narrowly as to

make it disappear.

III. Conclusion

We hold that Redbox’s collection of personal information

in connection with a kiosk rental transaction falls outside the

reach of § 1747.08(a) of California’s Song-Beverly Credit

Card Act because the customer’s credit card is used as a

deposit to secure payment in the event of loss or late return. 

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SINIBALDI V. REDBOX 15

Because the transaction is exempted under § 1747.08(c)(1),

we affirm the dismissal of the action.

AFFIRMED.

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge, dissenting.

This case presents a question of statutory interpretation of

a section of California’s Song-Beverly Credit Card Act, a

consumer protection statute intended to prevent merchants

from demanding personal information from consumers as a

condition of their ability to pay by credit card. Florez v.

Linens ‘N Things, Inc., 108 Cal. App. 4th 447, 452 (2003).

The California Legislature deemed that unless such

information, which includes addresses, phone numbers, and

ZIP codes, was necessary to complete the transaction, there

was no legitimate purpose to its acquisition. Absher v.

AutoZone, Inc., 164 Cal. App. 4th 332, 345 (2008). 

Accordingly, it enacted section 1747.08 of the California

Civil Code, which prohibits the collection of personal

information in connection with a credit card transaction, with

some limited exceptions, including the exception at issue

here: The prohibition does not apply “[i]f the credit card is

being used as a deposit to secure payment in the event of

default, loss, damage, or other similar occurrence.” Cal. Civ.

Code § 1747.08(c)(1).

As the majority states, we have no guidance from the

California Supreme Court, the California appellate courts,

courts in other jurisdictions, treatises, or restatements to help

us interpret this exception specifically. We are guided,

however, by the rule that “courts should liberally construe

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16 SINIBALDI V. REDBOX

remedial statutes in favor of their protective purpose, which,

in the case of section 1747.08, includes addressing the misuse

of personal identification information for, inter alia,

marketing purposes.” Pineda v. Williams-Sonoma Stores,

Inc., 51 Cal. 4th 524, 532 (2011) (internal citations and

quotation marks omitted).

The statute before us is remedial because its “overriding

purpose” was to protect consumer privacy by preventing

retailers from acquiring and using “additional personal

information for their own business purposes—for example, to

build mailing and telephone lists which they can subsequently

use for their own in-house marketing efforts, or sell to directmail ortele-marketing specialists, or to others.” Id. at 534–35

(internal citation and quotation marks omitted). A ZIP code

is protected personal information because it is “both

unnecessary to the transaction and can be used, together with

the cardholder’s name, to locate his or her full address,” id. at

532, for those very purposes. Plaintiffs have pleaded that

Redbox uses the ZIP codes it collects not for fraud

prevention, but for marketing purposes, precisely the type of

conduct the Act was intended to prevent.

To allow merchants to obtain the personal information

when essential to the transaction itself, the Legislature

provided several narrow exceptions including the exception

at issue here. Considering only the plain language of the

statute, I accept, for the sake of argument, the majority’s

claim that according to the dictionary definition of “deposit,”

the credit card in these transactions can be understood to be

“used as a deposit to secure payment.” Cal. Civ. Code

§ 1747.08(c)(1). I cannot agree, however, that even assuming

the credit card is used as a deposit, the deposit is being used

to secure that payment “in the event of default, loss, damage,

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SINIBALDI V. REDBOX 17

or similar occurrence,” as required by the statutory exception. 

Id. Instead, in my view, the credit card is being used, as

pleaded in the complaint, to secure the charges that constitute

the primary agreement between the customer and Redbox,

charges that are therefore unrelated to “default, loss, damage,

or similar occurrence.”

In fact, under Redbox’s model as pleaded, there is no

apparent way for a customer to incur charges on his credit

card of record for default, loss, or damage.1“Typically, the

per unit DVD rental price at a Redbox kiosk is a flat fee plus

tax for one night and, if the consumer chooses to keep the

DVD movie for additional nights, the consumer is charged for

each additional night at the same flat fee per night.” As

Redbox states in its brief, “some customers do not return the

DVD at all, whether because they lost it, damaged it, or

simply decided to retain it for an extended period of time. . . .

[T]he transaction functions as . . . a deposit for the continued

rental of the DVD until it is returned, or until the maximum

rental fee is reached.” On the Redbox model, a customer who

melts a DVD in his car pays the same amount as one who

chooses to rent the DVD for 25 nights, or one who chooses to

rent to own: all three customers are charged the maximum fee

of $25.00, and no customer is charged more. Because of this

model, a customer who destroys or loses a DVD causes no

 

1 The only way for a customer to default would be to pay the initial fee

with a credit card that expired or was cancelled before the final charges

were placed on it. In such cases, Redbox “reserve[s] the right to charge

. . . interest for overdue charges at the then-highest current rate allowable

on Illinois contracts” and the right to seek collection and attorney’s fees. 

Ifthe information froma second credit card were retained for this purpose,

it would likely fall within the deposit exception. However, so long as the

first credit card is valid, it will never be so used.

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18 SINIBALDI V. REDBOX

loss or damage to Redbox, and every payment secured by the

credit card is part of the anticipated transaction.

The majority’s error stems from its mischaracterization of

the Redbox transaction as a one-day rental followed by a

series of penalties imposed if the customer fails to return the

DVD after a single day. Instead, the Redbox customer is

agreeing to rent the DVD at a fixed daily fee with a maximum

total charge of $25.00 for 25 days of rental. The maximum

charge also constitutes the purchase price, and when the

customer has paid that amount he has acquired ownership of

the DVD. The customer thus authorizes Redbox to use his

credit card for future payments that are wholly different from

“default, loss, [or] damage.” To say, as the majority does,

that after the initial charge to the credit card, every additional

charge, no matter its nature, is a charge for “default, loss,

damage, or similar occurrence” is to stretch the exception

well beyond its plain language and legislative intent.

Thus, even assuming that the majority is correct that the

credit card transaction fits the definition of a deposit and

meets that portion of the statutory requirement, affording the

statute the liberal construction that favors its consumer

protective purposes, it seems clear that Plaintiffs have met

their burden of pleading that this statutory exception does not

apply. G.H.I.I. v. MTS, Inc., 147 Cal. App. 3d 256, 273 (Ct.

App. 1983) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted)

(“Where a party relies on a statute which contains a limitation

in the clause creating and defining the liability, as here, such

limitation must be negatived in the complaint”). Plaintiffs

have pleaded facts that, if true, place the transaction outside

the exception’s plain terms and establish that Redbox uses the

ZIP codes for marketing purposes. I therefore disagree that

the district court’s decision can be affirmed on this basis.

 Case: 12-55234, 06/06/2014, ID: 9122254, DktEntry: 46-1, Page 18 of 19
SINIBALDI V. REDBOX 19

The majority does not rely for its holding on the basis on

which the district court dismissed the action, namely, that the

Song-Beverly Act does not apply to Redbox kiosk

transactions. The majority avoids this issue for good reason,

as I would reverse the dismissal of the action on that ground

as well. Redbox kiosk transactions are more similar to payat-the-pump transactions, covered by the Act, than to online

transactions, which are not covered. See Apple, Inc. v.

Superior Court, 56 Cal. 4th 128, 144 (Cal. 2013). Nor does

the majority rely on another statutoryexception, which allows

for the collection of personal information when that

information “is required for a special purpose incidental but

related to the individual credit card transaction.” Cal Civ.

Code § 1747.08 (b)(4). This exception cannot be the basis for

dismissing the action because Plaintiffs pleaded that

Redbox’s sole purpose in obtaining the ZIP code is

marketing, rendering the purpose unrelated to the credit card

transaction.

I would reverse. Accordingly I dissent.

 Case: 12-55234, 06/06/2014, ID: 9122254, DktEntry: 46-1, Page 19 of 19