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, the “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. Pertinent to this appeal, 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. Because the well-pleaded allegations of Jenkins’s complaint, taken as true, establish the elements of his negligence claim, we reverse the judgment on the pleadings as to that claim. Because Jenkins fails to assert in his complaint facts showing that the Bank owed him a confidential duty or invaded his privacy, we affirm the judgment on the pleadings as to the remaining claims. A motion for judgment on the pleadings should be granted only if the moving party is clearly entitled to judgment. Sherman v. Fulton County Bd. of Assessors , 288 Ga. 88, 90 701 SE2d 472 2010. “All well-pleaded material allegations of the opposing party’s pleading are to be taken as true, and all allegations of the moving party which have been denied are taken as false.” Citation and punctuation omitted. Id. We review the trial court’s ruling on a motion for judgment on the pleadings de novo. McCobb v. Clayton County , 309 Ga. App. 217 710 SE2d 207 2011.
Construed in favor of Jenkins, the complaint contained the following allegations. Jenkins was a former customer of a financial institution acquired by the Bank, and the Bank maintained records containing his confidential information. The Bank “falsely represented to its customers and members of the general public that it created and implemented a system to adequately protect the private and personal identifying information entrusted to it by its customers and by customers of acquired financial institutions.” A Bank teller “who had no need, business or otherwise, to any of Jenkins’s information, was nevertheless granted access to that information” by the Bank. The teller gave the information to her husband, whose last name also was “Jenkins” and who used the information to steal Jenkins’s identity. This damaged his credit, hindered his efforts to obtain loans, required him to spend “enormous amounts of time and energy trying to correct false credit reports,” and caused him emotional injury.
