Turner v. Stripe Payments Company
- Jon Tigar
- 4:23-cv-03385
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Turner v. Stripe Payments Company, Judge Tigar dismissed Turner’s complaint with prejudice after adopting a recommendation that he failed to state a claim.
Terrance Turner’s action against Stripe Payments Company and the other defendants was dismissed with prejudice, judgment was entered against Turner, and the case was closed.
What happened
In Turner v. Stripe Payments Company, Terrance Turner alleged that Stripe and other defendants misused data and violated computer-fraud, wire-fraud, financial, consumer-protection, privacy, and other laws. A magistrate judge found that Turner’s allegations were mostly legal conclusions and that his amended complaint added criminal claims and unclear allegations.
The magistrate judge concluded that Turner could not enforce federal criminal laws, and that the Fourth Amendment did not apply because Stripe was a private actor rather than a government actor. Turner objected and raised seven new claims, but the court found that they did not clearly explain what harm he suffered. The court also noted that a second set of objections was late and duplicative and did not consider it.
Judge Tigar independently reviewed the amended complaint, recommendation, and timely objections, adopted the recommendation in full, and dismissed Turner’s complaint with prejudice. The court entered judgment against Turner and directed the Clerk to close the case.
The detailed version
- Turner v. Stripe Payments Company · No. 4:23-cv-03385
- Jon Tigar
- Nov. 13, 2023
Background
Terrance Turner sued Stripe Payments Company and other defendants. In his original complaint, Turner alleged that the defendants were misusing data in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, federal wire-fraud statutes, and other financial, consumer-protection, privacy, and legal statutes. The court reviewed the matter under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e), which permits dismissal at the screening stage when a complaint fails to state a legally sufficient claim.
Report and recommendation
Magistrate Judge Alex Tse recommended dismissing the action. He found that the original allegations were legal conclusions rather than factual allegations entitled to an assumption that they were true. Turner’s amended complaint added more than a dozen criminal claims under Title 18 of the United States Code and included what the recommendation described as numerous incomprehensible allegations.
Judge Tse concluded that Turner lacked standing—the legal ability to bring a claim—to enforce federal criminal laws. He also rejected Turner’s Fourth Amendment claim because the Fourth Amendment protects against intrusions by government actors, not private actors such as Stripe. Judge Tse further concluded that allowing another amendment would be futile because Turner had not corrected the previously identified deficiencies.
Objections and ruling
Turner timely objected to the recommendation. The district court reviewed the amended complaint, the recommendation, and Turner’s objections de novo, meaning independently and without simply deferring to the earlier recommendation. The court found that the objections did not address the deficiencies identified by Judge Tse. Although the objections raised seven new claims, the court found that those claims lacked merit because they generally criticized the defendants without coherently explaining the harm Turner allegedly suffered. The court also described the objections as largely consisting of ranting and swearing.
Judge Tigar adopted Judge Tse’s report and recommendation in full. The court dismissed Turner’s complaint with prejudice, entered judgment against Turner, and directed the Clerk of Court to close the file. The opinion states that Turner submitted another set of objections on October 21, 2023, but the court did not consider them because they were untimely and duplicative.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.