Opinion ID: 2350718
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: unlawful trade practices act

Text: Plaintiffs also allege that defendant violated the UTPA, ORS 646.605 to 646.652. That statute allows a person to seek damages and equitable relief if the person has suffered any ascertainable loss of money or property    as a result of willful use or employment by another person of a method, act or practice declared unlawful by ORS 646.608. ORS 646.638(1) (2005). [9] Plaintiffs assert that defendant violated ORS 646.608(1)(e) and (g) [10] by representing that all information gathered to sell its services or goods would be safeguarded and kept confidential when it knew that it lacked adequate means to safeguard such information and that the business of sale of services and goods would include privacy and confidentiality when it knew that the transactions were not confidential due to its inadequate data protection program. The Court of Appeals denied plaintiffs' claim because plaintiffs did not allege an ascertainable loss of money or property, as required to recover under the UTPA: [T]he thrust of plaintiffs' allegations is that, as a result of defendant's violation of the UTPA, they have been threatened with a loss of money or property due to the theft of their financial data, and they seek to recover damages for money that they have spent to forestall those threatened losses.  Plaintiffs have directed us to no authorityand we are aware of nonefor the proposition that such a `once removed' loss is a loss covered under the UTPA. Paul, 237 Or.App. at 603-04, 240 P.3d 1110 (emphasis in original). As our earlier discussion of plaintiffs' negligence claim indicates, the Court of Appeals correctly characterized plaintiffs' loss as money that they expended to prevent or mitigate the possible future use or disclosure of their confidential information by a third party. That expenditure of money is not the kind of loss compensable under the UTPA, because the expenditure is not based on any present harm to plaintiffs' economic interests. There is no indication that the UTPA was intended to protect against such speculative losses as the risk of identity theft, and plaintiffs have presented no argument that would support such an interpretation. Accordingly, plaintiffs have not stated a claim under the UTPA for the loss they incurred to prevent a future harm. [11] The decision of the Court of Appeals and the judgment of the circuit court are affirmed.