Tichich v. City of Bloomington, 835 F.3d 856

Multiple Minnesota drivers sued dozens of local governments, law‑enforcement personnel, and DPS officials under the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), alleging unauthorized name‑based access to DPS driver records.
Plaintiffs asserted hundreds to thousands of accesses across many years; the complaints were filed between 2013–2014, so a four‑year statute of limitations cut‑off applied to pre‑filing conduct.
This panel applied and clarified the court’s prior DPPA decision in McDonough v. Anoka County, requiring (1) individualized assessment of each defendant’s conduct and (2) factual allegations that, read as a whole, show suspicious timing/frequency or concerted activity to plead plausibility.
The court affirmed dismissals in most individual plaintiffs’ cases where within‑limitations accesses were few, scattered in time, often by license‑plate queries (not name searches), or otherwise lacked suspicious patterns.
The court reversed and remanded a limited set of claims where (a) intense, repeated same‑user and late‑night/time‑clustered pre‑limitations and within‑limitations accesses (not readily explained) created a plausible inference of impermissible purpose (notably against Minneapolis and St. Paul police for Kendall; Minneapolis Park & Rec and Minneapolis PD for Gavin; certain cities for Babu and Arcaro).

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
When does DPPA statute of limitations run?	Violations are continuing; accrual when plaintiff discovers misuse.	Limitations begins when the access/obtainment occurred.	28 U.S.C. §1658(a) four‑year period begins when access occurs (followed McDonough).
Pleading requirement to survive Rule 12(b)(6) re: DPPA access	Alleged volumes, timing, and hostile context suffice to infer impermissible purpose.	Generalized counts and isolated accesses are insufficient; need defendant‑specific facts.	Must plead defendant‑specific facts showing suspicious timing/frequency, concerted activity, or other "something more" to be plausible (per McDonough/Twombly).
How to treat multiple close‑in‑time database queries	Each technical access equals a separate obtainment causing multiple violations.	Close sequential accesses are likely one continuous obtainment by the same user and should be treated as one.	Sequential accesses within several minutes by same user are treated as one obtainment absent evidence to the contrary.
Aggregation/collective liability across many defendants	Plaintiffs urged that showing plausibility against some defendants should extend to all.	Defendants argued liability must be assessed individually; no group inference without concerted action.	Court refused to extend plausibility from some defendants to all; individual liability required unless concerted activity is alleged.

McDonough v. Anoka County, 799 F.3d 931 (8th Cir. 2015) (DPPA pleading standard: individualized assessment; suspicious timing/frequency or concerted activity to plausibly infer impermissible purpose)
Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007) (plausibility pleading standard under Rule 12(b)(6))