Elan Pavlov, a beneficiary of his grandmother’s payable-on-death account with the bank, alleged that Wilmington Savings Fund Society (WSFS) routinely fails to grant beneficiaries access to accounts that are rightfully theirs upon triggering events, such as the death of the account holder.
Pavlov asserted claims against WSFS on behalf of himself and a putative class of individuals designated as beneficiaries of accounts administered. His claims against WSFS included violations of the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, negligence, violations of the Delaware Consumer Fraud Protection Act, conversion, unjust enrichment, and breach of confidence.
WSFS and Dunbar LLC, a third-party vendor Pavlov accused of attempting to extract money from beneficiaries in exchange for access to property, each moved to dismiss the complaint.
Beetlestone agreed with WSFS that Pavlov failed to state a claim under the EFTA, which requires financial institutions to provide each consumer with a periodic statement for each account of such consumer that may be accessed by means of an electronic fund transfer.
The dispute centered on whether the account at issue, Pavlov’s grandmother’s payable-on-death account with WSFS, was an “account of” Pavlov within the meaning of the EFTA.
The statute’s plain language indicates that EFTA obligations apply only if Pavlov owned the account, Beetlestone wrote, noting that the Supreme Court has frequently explained that a statute’s use of the word “of” denotes ownership.
Pavlov argued that the account maintained at WSFS by his grandmother transferred automatically to the named beneficiary upon the death of the original owner. But whether the account passed to him upon his grandmother’s death is a legal conclusion, not a fact, and is therefore not to be taken as true at the motion to dismiss stage, the judge wrote.
Pavlov cited no viable authority supporting his contention that the account transferred to him upon his grandmother’s death, and thus no basis to conclude that the account maintained by his grandmother at WSFS became an “account of” Pavlov upon her death.
With Pavlov’s failure to state his federal EFTA claim, the only remaining claims were state-law claims. That raised a question as to whether the court had subject matter jurisdiction.
Pavlov contended that subject matter jurisdiction existed under the Class Action Fairness Act because minimal diversity existed, at least one member of the putative class was a citizen of a state different from any defendant, the proposed class exceeded 100 members, and the aggregate amount in controversy exceeded $5 million.
Although Pavlov alleged that the amount in controversy exceeded $5 million, the threshold required for CAFA jurisdiction, he provided no additional factual detail to support that allegation.
Aside from statutory damages under the EFTA, which were no longer available to him or the class after the dismissal of that claim, his requested damages included loss-of-use damages or interest for any delay in transferring the money allegedly owed to him and other class members, as well as any wrongfully assessed fees or charges on the accounts before transfer.
But he did not provide any specific value for those amounts as to himself or other class members, nor did he even identify the amount allegedly owed to him as beneficiary of his grandmother’s account.
The court was therefore left only to speculate and could not determine, based on the facts alleged, how the amount in controversy could plausibly exceed $5 million.
It therefore appeared that Pavlov had not met his burden to establish the court’s subject matter jurisdiction.