Malinda A. Smidga v. Spirit Airlines, Inc.

Published by Crandall Consulting · Informational litigation intelligence · Last substantive update: August 23, 2026

Docket / citation: 24-1757

Summary

The Third Circuit affirmed dismissal of a putative class action against Spirit Airlines for lack of Article III standing, concluding the plaintiffs’ allegations about Session Replay Code did not establish a concrete privacy injury. The court modified the district court’s dismissal to be without prejudice.

Litigation Status

Status, direction, and weight describe how tracked public sources characterize this matter as of our last review — they are informational classifications, not legal assessments.

Procedural Posture

Class representatives filed a consolidated amended complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania alleging Spirit used third-party Session Replay Code to record website visitors; Spirit moved to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1) (and alternatively under Rule 12(b)(6)), submitting a declaration disputing the allegations; the district court dismissed with prejudice after providing leave to request jurisdictional discovery and amend (which plaintiffs did not do); plaintiffs appealed to the Third Circuit.

Reported Holding

The Third Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal for lack of Article III standing because the amended complaint did not allege a concrete injury from the defendant’s alleged use of Session Replay Code (SRC) to record website interactions; the court modified the district court’s order to dismiss without prejudice.

What the Court Decided

The court held that the plaintiffs failed to allege a concrete injury-in-fact required for Article III standing based on their allegations about SRC recording website interactions, and that the district court properly considered the defendant’s factual declaration challenging those allegations; the Third Circuit affirmed the dismissal but ordered it be without prejudice.

What the Court Did Not Decide

The court did not decide the merits of the underlying statutory and tort claims (e.g., liability under the asserted state wiretap or privacy statutes) because it disposed of the case on standing grounds.

Significance

Generally viewed as defense-favorable. Characterizations of significance describe how the matter has generally been discussed in tracked public sources; individual holdings are often narrow, procedural, or fact-specific, and this page does not state or imply broader holdings than the sources support.

What This Page Does and Does Not Say

This page reports what our tracked public sources say about this matter — including, where identified, the procedural posture (for example, a ruling on a motion to dismiss is not a final merits decision). It does not report legal conclusions beyond those sources, does not predict outcomes, and does not constitute legal advice.

Technologies at Issue

• Session Replay Code (SRC)
• website interaction recording
• geolocation capture

Statutes Invoked

• Pennsylvania Wiretap Act; Maryland Wiretap Act; California Invasion of Privacy Act; California statutory larceny provision; California Unfair Competition Law

Claims Asserted

Claims identified in tracked public sources; pleadings may include additional or amended claims.

• Violation of the Pennsylvania Wiretap Act
• Invasion of privacy / intrusion upon seclusion (Pennsylvania law)
• Violation of the Maryland Wiretap Act
• Invasion of privacy / intrusion upon seclusion (Maryland law)
• Violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act
• Violation of California statutory larceny provision
• Violation of California Unfair Competition Law
• Trespass to chattels
• Conversion of chattels

What This Matter May Mean for Website Operators

For operators using similar technologies, the recurring factual questions in matters like this one are when session recording begins relative to consent and whether input masking covers every field. Our scanner tests these behaviors empirically.

The reported outcome direction at the standing stage reflects how tracked sources characterize the ruling; such rulings are often narrow, posture-specific, and fact-bound rather than broad statements of law.

Detection of a similar technology on a website is an informational risk indicator, not a legal conclusion, and nothing in this section is legal advice.

Related Intelligence

Sources

• Malinda Smidga v. Spirit Airlines Inc, No. 24-1757 (3d Cir. 2026) — Justia · Tier B (Authoritative secondary) · 2026-05-26

About This Page

Publisher: Inspection-Ready Institute, Inc. (DBA Crandall Consulting), an independent website compliance and risk consultancy. We are not a law firm and nothing on this page is legal advice.

How this content is produced: Facts are extracted from publicly available sources — court and government materials, recognized legal press, professional analysis, and industry reports — by our litigation intelligence engine, stored with full source provenance, and rendered from the database. Risk guidelines are computed by a deterministic formula, never by an AI model directly. See the full methodology.

Limitations: Counts labeled "Tracked" reflect matters identified in our source set and are not official court statistics. We report what courts decided and did not decide; we do not predict outcomes.

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