Opinion ID: 615727
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Remaining Damages Claims

Text: General principles of recovery in both contract and tort, which are not applicable to the mitigation damages we have discussed, do bar the plaintiffs' remaining claims. The district court correctly concluded that the plaintiffs' claims for loss of reward points, loss of reward point earning opportunities, and fees for pre-authorization changes were not recoverable. [12] These injuries were too attenuated from the data breach because they were incurred as a result of third parties' unpredictable responses to the cancellation of plaintiffs' credit or debit cards. See Stubbs v. Bartlett, 478 A.2d 690 (Me.1984) (concluding that a wife's loss of medical insurance was too attenuated an injury where it arose from a car accident that caused her husband to lose his job and his employer-provided medical insurance). We doubt that under Maine law it is reasonably foreseeable that an issuing bank would deny a cardholder's entitlement to accumulated points when the card has merely been replaced with a new one. Nor, under Maine law, is it reasonably foreseeable that pre-authorization arrangements, which are usually in the merchant's interest and are accordingly free-of-charge to set up, would involve change fees in the event of a credit or debit card replacement. Moreover, we do not think Maine, as a policy matter, would find such damages compensable.