UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
PATRICK C. HORRELL,
Plaintiff,
v. Civil Action No. 25-cv-2017 (TSC)
AT&T MOBILITY, LLC, et al.,
Defendants.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Plaintiff Patrick Horrell brings common law and statutory claims against Defendants
AT&T Mobility, LLC (“AT&T”) and US Mobile, Inc., seeking damages for injuries caused by
scammers who obtained control over his cell phone number. Before the court are US Mobile’s
Motion to Dismiss the Complaint, ECF No. 16, and Plaintiff’s Motion to Amend the Complaint,
ECF No. 24. For the following reasons, the court will GRANT US Mobile’s motion and GRANT
in part and DENY in part Plaintiff’s motion.
I. BACKGROUND
Plaintiff claims he received a phone call on June 24, 2025 from an individual purporting to
work at AT&T, his service provider, informing him about a supposedly fraudulent order placed
from his account. Am. Compl. ¶ 15, ECF No. 5. Concerned, Plaintiff asked the caller for help,
who in turn asked Plaintiff for a numerical code that had just been sent to his phone. Id. Plaintiff
duly provided the code. Id. Unbeknownst to Plaintiff, he had just enabled scammers to initiate a
“port-out” of his number, i.e. a transfer of the line from AT&T to a different service provider—
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here, US Mobile. Id. ¶¶ 50–51. US Mobile, unaware that the port-out had been initiated by
scammers, processed the transfer. See id. ¶¶ 26, 31. Once the port-out was complete, the
scammers seized control of Plaintiff’s number. Id. ¶ 21. They received all calls and messages
destined for him and sent lewd and threatening texts to his friends and family. Id. ¶¶ 21, 24.
Within hours, they had used the number to break into Plaintiff’s bank and email accounts. Id. ¶ 20.
Plaintiff claims that he was unable to perform his professional obligations as an expert witness and
a substitute decision-maker for individuals with psychiatric disorders because he was unable to
control his communications. Id. ¶¶ 43–44.
Distressed, Plaintiff contacted AT&T’s fraud center and lodged a complaint “concerning
the abrupt termination of his service.” Id. ¶ 19. When he did not hear back, he visited a local
AT&T store on June 25, where he learned that his number had been transferred to US Mobile, and
that AT&T had already asked US Mobile to return it. Id. ¶ 26. Seeking further updates, Plaintiff
emailed AT&T’s legal office and CEO. Id. ¶ 27. On June 26, an apparent AT&T employee wrote
back, informing him that the company “ha[d] already supplied” US Mobile with “proof of
[Plaintiff’s] ownership” over the phone number. Id. ¶ 31. Plaintiff did not regain control over his
phone number until July 1. Id. ¶ 39.
Plaintiff sued AT&T and US Mobile on June 27, seeking $50 million in damages for the
“severe reputational, emotional, physical, financial, and other loss” he suffered due to US Mobile’s
gross negligence, and its violations of the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures
Act, D.C. Code §§ 28-3901–28-3913 (“CPPA”), and the Federal Communications Act, 47 U.S.C.
§§ 206, 222 (“FCA”). Am. Compl. ¶ 84; see id. ¶¶ 76–130. US Mobile moved to dismiss the
Complaint under Federal Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6), arguing that Plaintiff lacked standing to
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assert his statutory claims, and that, in any event, he failed to state a claim for relief under any of
his causes of action. See Mot. to Dismiss at 6–16, ECF No. 16. Before filing his opposition brief,
Plaintiff moved to amend the Complaint. ECF No. 24. AT&T consented to the proposed
amendments, see id. ¶ 1, but US Mobile opposed the motion. ECF No. 29.
II. ANALYSIS
A. US Mobile’s Rule 12(b)(1) Motion to Dismiss
“‘Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction,’ possessing ‘only that power authorized
by Constitution and statute.’” Gunn v. Minton, 568 U.S. 251, 256 (2013) (quoting Kokkonen v.
Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994)). A threshold requirement for such
jurisdiction is that a plaintiff have “standing to sue under Article III of the Constitution.” FDA v.
All. for Hippocratic Med., 602 U.S. 367, 378 (2024). To establish standing, a plaintiff must
demonstrate “(i) that she has suffered or likely will suffer an injury in fact, (ii) that the injury likely
was caused or will be caused by the defendant, and (iii) that the injury likely would be redressed
by the requested judicial relief.” Id. at 380. A Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss for lack of standing
tests whether a plaintiff can satisfy these requirements. See Haase v. Sessions, 835 F.2d 902, 906
(D.C. Cir. 1987). If the plaintiff is unable to “bear[] the burden of establishing” standing, the court
must dismiss the action. Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 104 (1998); see id.
at 94.
At the outset, the court notes that Plaintiff cannot demonstrate standing merely by alleging
that the CPPA and FCA grant him “statutory right[s]” and “authorize [him] to sue to vindicate
th[ose] right[s].” TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413, 426 (2021) (quoting Spokeo, Inc. v.
Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 341 (2016)). He must identify real-world harm that he suffered because of
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US Mobile’s actions. See id. at 426–27. And that harm must be relevant to the underlying cause
of action. See Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992).
With these principles in mind, it is clear that Plaintiff lacks standing to bring his CPPA
claim because he has failed to demonstrate any relevant injury traceable to US Mobile’s conduct.
Plaintiff claims to have been deceived by US Mobile’s representations on its website that “[a]ny
subscriber accounts without unique, accurate, and verifiable customer identity information are
subject to immediate line suspension without refund or prior notice.” Pl.’s Opp’n at 3, ECF No.
23 (emphasis omitted). According to Plaintiff, “there was nothing ‘immediate’ about his line’s
suspension,” as US Mobile did not transfer his phone number back to AT&T for nearly a week
after it had learned of the fraud. Id. at 4; see Am. Compl. ¶¶ 26, 31. This, Plaintiff argues, entitles
him to relief under § 28-3904 of the CPPA, which prohibits “[u]nfair or deceptive trade practices,”
including “misrepresent[ations] as to a material fact.” D.C. Code § 28-3904, 28-3904(e). But
whether or not US Mobile misrepresented the speed of its fraud-resolution process, Plaintiff could
not have been deceived by their online statements because he did not read them until he visited
US Mobile’s website on June 30. US Mobile’s Opp’n at 15, ECF No. 29; see Doe v. Bozzuto
Mgmt. Co., No. 23-cv-3360, 2024 WL 3104550, at *8 (D.D.C. June 24, 2024) (dismissing
plaintiff’s CPPA claims because her injury was not caused by defendant’s misrepresentations).
To the extent that Plaintiff claims he was misled after he became aware of US Mobile’s policy,
that argument is severely undermined by the fact that US Mobile returned the phone number to
him the very next day, on July 1. Am. Compl. ¶ 39. Thus, plaintiff lacks standing to bring his
CPPA claim.
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Likewise, Plaintiff lacks standing to pursue his claim under the FCA because he fails to
show any relevant injury caused by US Mobile’s actions. The FCA imposes a duty upon
telecommunications carriers to protect the confidentiality of their customers’ proprietary network
information. 47 U.S.C. § 222(c)(1). Plaintiff complains that he suffered a privacy intrusion within
the meaning of this statute when the scammers stole his phone number, leaving him with “a feeling
of deep personal violation.” Am. Compl. ¶ 39. But, at most, the invasion of privacy and distress
Plaintiff experienced were caused by AT&T’s failure to verify Plaintiff’s identity when it
permitted the port-out of his number. Plaintiff does not allege any facts indicating that at the time,
US Mobile had any reason to suspect that the initiated transfer was fraudulent. Because Plaintiff’s
injuries were not caused by the “challenged acts of” US Mobile, Plaintiff cannot satisfy the
causation prong of standing. Fla. Audubon Soc’y v. Bentsen, 94 F.3d 658, 663 (D.C. Cir. 1996)
(en banc). Accordingly, the court dismisses his CPPA and FCA claims without prejudice. See
Havens v. Mabus, 759 F.3d 91, 98 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (“A jurisdictional dismissal—which is not an
adjudication on the merits under Rule 41(b)—is, then, a dismissal without prejudice.”).
Plaintiff’s gross negligence claim, however, is a different story. “[A]ssum[ing] the truth
of all material factual allegations in the complaint” and “granting [P]laintiff the benefit of all
inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged,” Am. Nat’l Ins. Co. v. FDIC, 642 F.3d 1137,
1139 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (quoting Thomas v. Principi, 394 F.3d 970, 972 (D.C. Cir. 2005)), as it
must, the court finds that Plaintiff has demonstrated an injury-in-fact fairly traceable to US
Mobile’s conduct which could be redressed by a favorable decision. As described above, Plaintiff
suffered financial and reputational harms, among others, because of his inability to regain control
over his phone number for almost a week. These harms are cognizable under Article III. See
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TransUnion, 594 U.S. at 425. It is “substantially probable” that some of the harms occurred
because US Mobile unreasonably dragged its feet in responding to Plaintiff’s complaint. Fla.
Audubon, 94 F.3d at 663; see Am. Compl. ¶¶ 31–32. And a finding of gross negligence, along
with a damages award, would “remedy the injury suffered” by compensating Plaintiff for his
losses. Steel Co., 523 U.S. at 107. Plaintiff therefore has standing to assert his gross negligence
claim.
B. US Mobile’s Rule 12(b)(6) Motion to Dismiss
US Mobile contends that Plaintiff’s gross negligence claim should nevertheless be
dismissed because Plaintiff has failed to state a plausible claim for relief. See Mot. to Dismiss at
6–16. To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a plaintiff’s “complaint must contain sufficient factual
matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal,
556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). “A
pleading that offers ‘labels and conclusions’ or ‘a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause
of action will not do.’” Id. (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555). “Nor does a complaint suffice if
it tenders ‘naked assertion[s]’ devoid of ‘further factual enhancement.’” Id. (quoting Twombly,
550 U.S. at 557). That said, the court must “accept all the well-pleaded factual allegations of the
complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences from those allegations in the plaintiff's favor.”
Banneker Ventures, LLC v. Graham, 798 F.3d 1119, 1129 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (citing Iqbal, 556 U.S.
at 678).
Plaintiff’s gross negligence claim is rooted in D.C. tort law and this court sits in diversity
jurisdiction, so the court will apply “state substantive law and federal procedural law” to decide
whether the claim survives. Burke v. Air Serv Int’l, Inc., 685 F.3d 1102, 1107 (D.C. Cir. 2012)
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(cleaned up). In other words, “District of Columbia law” supplies the substantive elements of
Plaintiff’s gross negligence claim, but “the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure [will] govern the
question whether [Plaintiff] has pleaded sufficient facts to state a claim.” Bain v. Gary, Williams,
Parenti, Watson, & Gary, P.L., 53 F. Supp. 3d 144, 147 (D.D.C. 2014).
US Mobile first urges the court to dismiss Plaintiff’s claim because he labeled it “gross
negligence” (instead of mere “negligence”), and because gross negligence “is not a stand-alone
cause of action in the District of Columbia.” Mot. to Dismiss at 6 (quoting Staggs v. Smith &
Wesson, No. 21-cv-2535, 2022 WL 444110, at *4 (D.D.C. Feb. 14, 2022)). True, “the law of the
District of Columbia does not recognize degrees of negligence,” and “courts have traditionally
analyzed whether a defendant acted with gross negligence only in limited circumstances where
gross negligence is a specific element of a claim or defense,” or “for equitable reasons”—
circumstances inapplicable here. Hernandez v. District of Columbia, 845 F. Supp. 2d 112, 115
(D.D.C. 2012) (cleaned up). For the most part, however, courts have dismissed gross negligence
claims only when the complaint also contains a cause of action for “ordinary” negligence. See,
e.g., id. at 116; Bradley v. NCAA, 249 F. Supp. 3d 149, 168–69 (D.D.C. 2017); Search v. Uber
Techs., Inc., 128 F. Supp. 3d 222, 237–38 (D.D.C. 2015). Indeed, in resolving motions to dismiss,
courts have repeatedly construed isolated claims for “gross negligence” as ones for “ordinary”
negligence. See, e.g., J.Q.R. ex rel. Rogers v. D.C. Gov’t, No. 20-cv-02477, 2022 WL 3444844,
at *2 (D.D.C. Aug. 17, 2022); Est. of Wilson v. District of Columbia, No. 23-cv-1987, 2024 WL
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4370850, at *5 (D.D.C. Sep. 29, 2024). Accordingly, the court will construe Plaintiff’s sole
negligence claim as a claim for ordinary negligence. 1
Even construed as a claim for ordinary negligence, however, Plaintiff fails to plead
sufficient facts to survive a motion to dismiss. “To prevail on a negligence claim under D.C. law,
‘a plaintiff must demonstrate that: (1) the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff, (2) the
defendant breached that duty, and (3) the defendant’s breach proximately caused an injury to the
plaintiff.’” Bunting v. D.C. CVS Pharmacy, LLC, 172 F.4th 36, 40 (D.C. Cir. 2026) (quoting KS
Condo, LLC v. Fairfax Vill. Condo. VII, 302 A.3d 503, 507 (D.C. 2023)). Here, Plaintiff falters at
the very first element. He asserts that US Mobile has both a “common law duty” and a “regulatory
duty” to “safeguard the telephone numbers of its paying customers.” Am. Compl. ¶¶ 77, 78. But
Plaintiff was not a paying customer of US Mobile. Quite the opposite: He wanted his number
transferred back to his provider, AT&T. So US Mobile owed no duty to him.
In any event, the common law and federal regulations Plaintiff references do not plausibly
suggest that US Mobile owed him a duty of care on the facts of this case. Under D.C. law, “a
defendant typically only assumes a duty of care towards a plaintiff ‘once the defendant enters into
a relationship’” with him. Roe v. Doe, 401 F. Supp. 3d 159, 165 (D.D.C. 2019) (quoting Hedgepeth
v. Whitman Walker Clinic, 22 A.3d 789, 794 (D.C. 2011)) (cleaned up). But US Mobile had no
preexisting relationship with Plaintiff before the port-over of his line. And the scammers’
1
Contrary to US Mobile’s argument, Sai v. Transportation Security Administration, 326 F.R.D. 31 (D.D.C. 2018) and Powell v. Yellen, No. 22-5200, 2023 WL 8947132 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 28, 2023) do not foreclose Plaintiff’s so-called “improper effort to amend the Amended Complaint through his opposition brief.” US Mobile’s Opp’n at 2–3. Those cases involved wholesale additions of entirely unrelated causes of action to the complaint. That is not the case here, where the court merely construes an existing claim for gross negligence as one for ordinary negligence.
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unilateral act of transferring Plaintiff’s number to US Mobile hardly forged a relationship which
US Mobile had “enter[ed] into” with Plaintiff. Id. Likewise, Plaintiff relies upon 47 C.F.R.
§ 64.2010(a), a regulation which implements the FCA’s privacy provisions, but that regulation
only requires service providers to “take reasonable measures to discover and protect against
attempts to gain unauthorized access” to their customers’ information. As discussed above,
Plaintiff was not a customer of US Mobile within any reasonable understanding of the word. See
47 C.F.R. § 64.2003(f) (defining customer as “a person or entity to which the telecommunications
carrier is currently providing service”). Accordingly, the court will dismiss Plaintiff’s claim
without prejudice. 2 See Belizan v. Hershon, 434 F.3d 579, 583 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (“[A] complaint
that omits certain essential facts and thus fails to state a claim warrants dismissal pursuant to Rule
12(b)(6) but not dismissal with prejudice.”).
C. Plaintiff’s Motion to Amend the Complaint
As an apparent last resort, Plaintiff moves to amend his Complaint for the second time,
ostensibly to cure the deficiencies US Mobile identified in its motion to dismiss. Under Rule
15(a)(1), a party can “amend its pleading” only “once as a matter of course” twenty-one “days
after serving it.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(1), (a)(1)(A). Thereafter, he must obtain leave of court to
amend his complaint unless the defendant consents. Id. 15(a)(2). Such leave may be denied,
however, if there has been “undue delay . . . on the part of the movant,” Atchinson v. District of
Columbia, 73 F.3d 418, 425 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (cleaned up), if allowing amendment would be
2
The court need not address in depth Plaintiff’s theory, unsupported by precedent or common sense, that he was a “customer” of US Mobile because he “unwittingly and involuntarily received the services of [its] network.” Pl.’s Opp’n at 6 (citing Am. Compl. ¶¶ 13, 31–35). As Plaintiff’s own acts demonstrate, he had a consumer relationship with AT&T, not US Mobile, and wanted his number transferred back immediately.
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“futile” because “the proposed claim would not survive a motion to dismiss,” Hettinga v. United
States, 677 F.3d 471, 480 (D.C. Cir. 2012), or if the proposed claim “would radically alter the
scope and nature of the case and bears no more than a tangential relationship to the original action,”
Miss. Ass’n of Coops. v. Farmers Home Admin., 139 F.R.D. 542, 544 (D.D.C. 1991).
The court denies Plaintiff leave to add paragraphs 32, 33, 34, 109, 110, 111, and 116 of the
proposed Second Amended Complaint (“SAC”). See ECF No. 24-1. These paragraphs largely
contain factual detail about Plaintiff’s interactions with US Mobile from June 27 to June 30 and
do nothing to demonstrate that US Mobile plausibly owed a duty of care to him, that he relied upon
US Mobile’s alleged misrepresentations, or that US Mobile was responsible for his invasion of
privacy. Because the proposed amendments would therefore be “futile,” the court denies leave to
add them. Hettinga, 677 F.3d at 480.
The court, however, grants Plaintiff’s request to add paragraphs 97, 98, and 105 of the
proposed SAC. Those paragraphs describe AT&T’s lack of security measures, which exposed
Plaintiff to the port-over attack and recount the terms and conditions of using AT&T’s services.
Because AT&T has consented to these additions, see Pl.’s Partial Consent Mot. to Amend Compl.
at 2, ECF No. 24, the court grants Plaintiff’s motion to add those paragraphs.
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the court will GRANT US Mobile’s Motion to Dismiss, ECF
No. 16, and GRANT in part and DENY in part Plaintiff’s Motion to Amend the Complaint, ECF
No. 24. A separate Order accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.
Date: August 21, 2026
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Tanya S. Chutkan
TANYA S. CHUTKAN
United States District Judge
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