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Wells Fargo Bank NA v. Jenkins

The aspirational statement of Congressional policy expressed in 15 U.S.C. § 6801 subsection a regarding the obligation of a financial institution to respect the privacy of its customers does not provide an ascertainable standard of conduct so as to establish a legal duty, the breach of which may gave rise to a cause of action for negligence under Georgia law.

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This Court granted certiorari to the Court of Appeals in Jenkins v. Wachovia Bank, N.A., 314 Ga. App. 257 724 SE2d 1 2012, to consider whether the Court of Appeals erred in holding that a violation of an alleged duty imposed by 15 USC § 6801 a, which is part of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act “GLBA”, 15 USC § 6801 et seq., gives rise to a cause of action for negligence under OCGA § 51-1-6. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the holding was in error, and we reverse that portion of the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

The relevant facts as found by the Court of Appeals are the following. Stephen Kale Jenkins brought a tort action against Wachovia Bank, N.A., Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., and all predecessor and successor entities and John Doe corporations collectively, “Bank”, in which he alleged that a Bank teller had improperly accessed Jenkins’s confidential information and given it to her husband, allowing the husband to steal Jenkins’s identity. Jenkins asserted claims that the Bank negligently failed to protect the information, breached a duty of confidentiality, and invaded his privacy. The trial court granted the Bank’s motion for judgment on the pleadings. The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment on the pleadings as to Jenkins’s negligence claim after finding that the allegations of his complaint established the elements of negligence.1

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