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16-4270 

Doyle v. Mastercard International Incorporated

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER 

FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF 

APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT=S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY 

ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX 

OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION ASUMMARY ORDER@). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY 

ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. 

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for 

the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States 

Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 

6th day of July, two thousand seventeen. 

PRESENT: DENNIS JACOBS, 

 PIERRE N. LEVAL, 

 REENA RAGGI, 

Circuit Judges, 

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ROBERT DOYLE, individually and on behalf 

of all others similarly situated, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

 -v.- 16-4270 

MASTERCARD INTERNATIONAL INCORPORATED, 

Defendant-Appellee. 

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FOR APPELLANT: TODD C. BANK, Todd C. Bank, 

Attorney at Law, P.C., Kew 

Gardens, NY. 
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FOR APPELLEE: CHRISTOPHER KARAGHEUZOFF 

(Jonathan Montcalm, on the 

brief), Dorsey & Whitney LLP, 

New York, NY. 

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court 

for the Southern District of New York (Swain, J.). 

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND 

DECREED that the judgment of the district court be AFFIRMED. 

Robert Doyle appeals from a judgment of the United States 

District Court for the Southern District of New York (Swain, 

J.) dismissing his putative class action claims for breach of 

contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair 

dealing, and violation of the District of Columbia Consumer 

Protection Procedures Act (“DCCPPA”), D.C. Code §§ 

28-3901-3913. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the 

underlying facts, the procedural history, and the issues 

presented for review. 

Doyle’s amended complaint alleges that, from 2011 to 2015, 

Mastercard International Incorporated (“Mastercard”) 

advertised nationwide that it would donate one cent to a 

charitable program called “Stand Up To Cancer” for each 

Mastercard credit or debit card transaction of at least $10 in 

a United States restaurant. (In 2011, there was no minimum.) 

In 2012, 2014, and 2015, Mastercard added that it would make 

a two-cent donation for certain contactless transactions. 

Each year, the advertisements disclosed that the promotion 

would start on a certain date and run until the earlier of: (1) 

a specified end date; or (2) whenever Mastercard reached its 

$4 million maximum donation. 

Doyle is a New Jersey resident who used his Mastercard 

credit or debit card at restaurants in Florida and New Jersey 

between 2011 and 2015. He alleges that by engaging in 

qualifying transactions in response to Mastercard’s 

advertisements, he (and others like him) formed a contract with 

Mastercard, and that Mastercard breached by continuing to 

advertise the “Stand Up To Cancer” promotion after it became 

apparent that the $4 million maximum donation would be, or had 
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been, met. He further alleges breach of the implied covenant 

of good faith and fair dealing, and violation of the DCCPPA. 

The district court dismissed the complaint, ruling that 

Doyle failed to state a claim for either breach of contract or 

breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, 

and lacked standing to pursue either an individual or class 

action under the DCCPA. 

We review de novo the grant of a motion to dismiss for 

failure to state a claim, accepting all factual allegations as 

true and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the 

plaintiff. Trs. of Upstate N.Y. Eng’rs Pension Fund v. Ivy 

Asset Mgmt., 843 F.3d 561, 566 (2d Cir. 2016). “The same 

standards apply to dismissals for lack of standing pursuant to 

Rule 12(b)(1) when, as here, the district court based its 

decision solely on the allegations of the complaint and the 

undisputed facts evidenced in the record.” Id. at 566-67. 

1. Doyle’s complaint acknowledges that “[t]he terms of 

MasterCard’s advertisements [] were clear, definite, and 

explicit.” App’x at 8. Specifically, for each qualifying 

transaction, Mastercard agreed to make a donation to “Stand Up 

To Cancer” until a scheduled end date arrived or the $4 million 

maximum donation was reached. Doyle does not allege that 

Mastercard violated these terms. Therefore, regardless of 

when the advertisements appeared or how certain Mastercard was 

that the maximum donation would be met, there was no breach of 

contract under New York law (which the parties agree applies). 

See Kraus v. Visa Int’l Serv. Ass’n, 304 A.D.2d 408, 408 (1st 

Dep’t 2003) (affirming dismissal of breach of contract claims 

because “plaintiff failed to allege the breach of any particular 

contractual provision”). 

2. Doyle claims that Mastercard breached the implied 

covenant of good faith and fair dealing. However, “New York 

law . . . does not recognize a separate cause of action for breach 

of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing when a 

breach of contract claim, based upon the same facts, is also 

pled.” Harris v. Provident Life & Accident Ins. Co., 310 F.3d 

73, 81 (2d Cir. 2002); see also ICD Holdings S.A. v. Frankel, 

976 F. Supp. 234, 243-44 (S.D.N.Y. 1997) (“A claim for breach 
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of the implied covenant will be dismissed as redundant where 

the conduct allegedly violating the implied covenant is also 

the predicate for breach of covenant of an express provision 

of the underlying contract.” (internal quotation marks 

omitted)). Doyle’s claim for breach of the implied covenant 

was properly dismissed as duplicative of the claim for breach 

of contract. 

3. Doyle argues that it was error to dismiss his putative 

class claim under the DCCPPA prior to class certification. He 

is mistaken. Because he does not claim to have personally 

suffered an injury under that statute, he lacks standing to sue. 

See Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 502 (1975) (“Petitioners must 

allege and show that they personally have been injured, not that 

injury has been suffered by other, unidentified members of the 

class to which they belong and which they purport to 

represent.”); see also Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 357 (1996) 

(noting that Article III standing requirements are “no less true 

with respect to class actions than with respect to other 

suits”); Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 40 

n.20 (1976) (“That a suit may be a class action, however, adds 

nothing to the question of standing[.]”). 

Standing is generally a prerequisite to class 

certification. Although there is a limited exception for cases 

in which class certification is “logically antecedent” to the 

determination of standing, see Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., 527 

U.S. 815, 831 (1999), that exception does not apply here because 

“resolution of class certification [would not] obviate[] the 

need to decide issues of Article III standing,” Mahon v. Ticor 

Title Ins. Co., 683 F.3d 59, 65 (2d Cir. 2012). Regardless of 

whether a class is certified for purposes of a DCCPPA claim, 

Doyle would lack standing to sue on its behalf because he alleges 

no injury under that (or any other consumer protection) statute. 

His alleged injury is based on an entirely separate -- and 

meritless -- breach-of-contract theory. See Allee v. Medrano, 

416 U.S. 802, 828-29 (1974) (Burger, C.J., concurring in the 

result in part and dissenting in part) (“[I]t bears repeating 

that a person cannot predicate standing on injury which he does 

not share.”); Okla. Police Pension & Ret. Sys. v. U.S. Bank Nat’l 

Ass’n, 986 F. Supp. 2d 412, 419 n.3 (S.D.N.Y. 2013) (explaining 
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that logical antecedence “is inapplicable to [a] case involving 

a challenge to the sole named plaintiff’s standing to bring a 

claim under a separate cause of action which it itself does not 

have standing to bring”). 

Accordingly, we hereby AFFIRM the judgment of the district 

court. 

FOR THE COURT: 

CATHERINE O’HAGAN WOLFE, CLERK