Speculative Document-Disclosure Allegations Do Not Create Article III Standing; Jurisdictional Dismissals Must Be Without Prejudice

Introduction

In Huda Fakhreddine v. University of Pennsylvania (3d Cir. Jan. 9, 2026) (not precedential), the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit addressed whether faculty plaintiffs could sue a private university to stop (and later seek damages for) the university’s voluntary production of documents to a congressional committee. The controversy arose after nationally televised congressional testimony about antisemitism on campus referenced Professor Huda Fakhreddine and related events, and after the House Committee on Education and the Workforce sought broad categories of documents from the University of Pennsylvania.

The appellants (Fakhreddine and a campus group, Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine) asserted federal constitutional and civil-rights theories premised on alleged retaliatory and privacy harms from document production, plus Pennsylvania constitutional and contract claims. The threshold issues on appeal were jurisdictional: (i) whether the amended complaint plausibly alleged an Article III injury-in-fact based on dissemination of information, and (ii) whether the district court could adjudicate the state-law claims. A remedial issue followed: whether a jurisdictional dismissal may be entered “with prejudice.”

Summary of the Opinion

The Third Circuit affirmed dismissal because the operative amended complaint did not plausibly allege a concrete, non-speculative injury-in-fact: it did not allege that the documents Penn had produced to the Committee actually mentioned or concerned Fakhreddine or the campus group, instead alleging only that responsive documents “might” mention them and that it was “impossible” to know what Penn had produced. Speculation cannot establish standing.

The court also held the district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the Pennsylvania constitutional and breach-of-contract claims because the amended complaint did not identify a jurisdictional basis for them, and (as the panel explained) considered supplemental jurisdiction unavailable in light of dismissal of the federal claims.

However, because the dismissals rested on justiciability and jurisdictional grounds, the Third Circuit modified the judgment to be without prejudice and affirmed as modified.

Analysis

Precedents Cited

• Carney v. Adams, 592 U.S. 53 (2020): Cited for applying the modern, three-part (injury, causation, redressability) Article III standing test to federal constitutional claims at the pleading stage. The panel relied on it as part of the basic doctrinal frame: without a plausible injury-in-fact, federal courts have no power to proceed.
• Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016): Cited for the requirement that the plaintiff allege an “invasion of a legally protected interest” that is “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent,” not conjectural. The panel used Spokeo to emphasize that a plaintiff must plead a real-world, non-abstract harm (or a close analogue) and that standing requirements apply even when statutory or constitutional violations are alleged.
• Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992): Quoted via Spokeo for the canonical injury-in-fact formulation. The panel’s application was orthodox: conjecture about what might be disclosed cannot satisfy “actual or imminent.”
• Lutter v. JNESO, 86 F.4th 111 (3d Cir. 2023): Cited for the Third Circuit’s pleading-stage requirement that injury-in-fact be plausibly alleged, and (in a footnoted discussion) for the consequences of amendment versus supplementation. The panel invoked Lutter to underscore that standing is evaluated against the operative pleading and that later events generally must be brought in via the proper procedural mechanism.
• TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413 (2021): The opinion’s key dissemination precedent. The panel drew a bright line from TransUnion: for a dissemination-based theory of harm, plaintiffs who cannot plausibly allege their information was actually disseminated (or that disseminated information concerned them) lack injury-in-fact. Here, the amended complaint did not plausibly allege the Committee received information about these plaintiffs.
• Diamond Alt. Energy, LLC v. EPA, 606 U.S. 100 (2025): Cited for the proposition that Article III standing cannot be founded on speculation. The panel used it to reject allegations framed in terms of what documents “might” contain.
• Talley v. Clark, 111 F.4th 255 (3d Cir. 2024), and Hedges v. Musco, 204 F.3d 109 (3d Cir. 2000): Cited for the supplemental-jurisdiction framework when federal claims are dismissed prior to trial and the general expectation that district courts decline to exercise jurisdiction over remaining state claims absent countervailing considerations of judicial economy, convenience, and fairness. The panel relied on these authorities to support its conclusion that the state-law claims could not proceed in federal court once the federal claims were dismissed.
• Merritts v. Richards, 62 F.4th 764 (3d Cir. 2023): Cited for the rule that dismissals on jurisdictional or justiciability grounds must be without prejudice, because a court lacking jurisdiction cannot render a merits disposition with claim-preclusive effect.
• Cook v. GameStop, Inc., 148 F.4th 153 (3d Cir. 2025): Cited for the appellate court’s authority to modify the form of a dismissal order. The panel used it to justify modifying the district court’s “with prejudice” judgment to be “without prejudice.”

Legal Reasoning

1. Standing turned on what the operative pleading actually alleged was disclosed. The amended complaint (filed July 8, 2024) predated the Committee’s later, more targeted August 2024 request for Fakhreddine’s documents. Evaluating standing at the motion-to-dismiss stage, the panel looked to that operative pleading and found no plausible allegation that Penn had produced documents that mentioned or concerned Fakhreddine or the campus group—only that documents “might” mention them and that plaintiffs could not know what was produced. Under Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, and Diamond Alt. Energy, LLC v. EPA, conjecture does not equal injury.
2. Dissemination-based harms require dissemination of the plaintiff’s information. The court treated TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez as dispositive on the dissemination theory: if the challenged disclosure did not concern the plaintiff (or is not plausibly alleged to have concerned the plaintiff), there is no concrete injury-in-fact. Thus, even if the congressional inquiry broadly related to campus events associated with plaintiffs, standing required plausible allegations tying actual production to the plaintiffs themselves.
3. Procedural posture mattered: later events were not incorporated into the pleadings. The opinion highlighted Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(d), which permits supplemental pleadings for post-pleading events, and noted that Fakhreddine did not supplement the complaint to incorporate the Committee’s August 2024 request and Penn’s response. By emphasizing this point (and citing Lutter v. JNESO), the panel reinforced that plaintiffs must properly update pleadings if they want later developments to supply standing or otherwise change the jurisdictional calculus.
4. State-law claims failed on subject-matter jurisdiction and could not remain once federal claims fell away. The panel noted the amended complaint did not satisfy Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(1) by identifying a jurisdictional basis for the Pennsylvania constitutional privacy claim and the contract claim. It further explained that even if supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a) had been pleaded, dismissal of the federal claims meant the district court should not proceed on the state claims under the principles described in Talley v. Clark and Hedges v. Musco (and 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)).
5. Jurisdictional dismissals cannot be “with prejudice.” Applying Merritts v. Richards, the Third Circuit held that because dismissal rested on standing and jurisdiction, it had to be without prejudice. The appellate court then modified the judgment under Cook v. GameStop, Inc..

Impact

• Pleading burden in “anticipated disclosure” cases: Plaintiffs seeking to enjoin an institution’s production of records to third parties (including congressional committees) must plead non-speculative facts that their own information has been (or is imminently certain to be) disclosed, and that the disclosure concerns them in a way that embodies a concrete injury. Allegations framed as “might mention us” will predictably fail at the standing stage.
• Importance of supplementation (Rule 15(d)) for evolving investigations: Where document requests evolve over time, plaintiffs cannot rely on later developments unless they are properly brought into the operative pleadings. This decision signals that courts may treat standing as fixed to the operative complaint unless and until supplementation occurs.
• Clarification of remedy and preclusion consequences: The modification to “without prejudice” matters practically: a jurisdictional dismissal should not foreclose a later suit if a plaintiff can later plead (or prove) facts establishing standing and jurisdiction (for example, if an actual, plaintiff-specific disclosure occurs and is properly pleaded).
• Federal/state claim packaging: The opinion underscores that state-law claims need an articulated jurisdictional hook and, absent diversity or other independent federal jurisdiction, they are vulnerable once federal claims are dismissed early.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Article III standing (injury-in-fact)

The Constitution limits federal courts to deciding real “cases” and “controversies.” A plaintiff must show a concrete, personal harm that is real now or imminent—not a fear based on uncertainty about what might happen.

Dissemination-based injury

If the claimed harm is “my information was disclosed,” the plaintiff must plausibly allege that information about them was in fact shared (or will imminently be shared). If nothing about the plaintiff was disseminated, there is no disclosure harm.

Amended vs. supplemental pleadings

An amended complaint typically revises allegations about existing events; a supplemental pleading (Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(d)) adds events that occurred after the complaint was filed. Here, later document requests were not added to the operative pleading, so they could not supply standing.

Subject-matter jurisdiction and supplemental jurisdiction

Federal courts must have a legal basis to hear each case. State-law claims can sometimes be heard alongside federal claims under “supplemental jurisdiction” (28 U.S.C. § 1367), but when the federal claims are dismissed early, courts usually send the state claims to state court.

With prejudice vs. without prejudice

“With prejudice” generally means the claim is finally rejected on the merits and cannot be refiled. “Without prejudice” means the court did not determine the merits and the plaintiff may be able to file again. If a court lacks jurisdiction, it cannot issue a merits-based, claim-preclusive dismissal—so dismissal must be without prejudice.

Conclusion

The Third Circuit’s central contribution in this case is its firm, jurisdiction-first insistence that disclosure-based civil-rights litigation must be grounded in non-speculative allegations that the plaintiff’s information was actually disseminated (or is imminently certain to be), consistent with TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez and the broader standing framework in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins and Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife. The opinion also reinforces two procedural guardrails: evolving facts should be brought into the case through proper supplementation under Rule 15(d), and jurisdictional dismissals must be entered without prejudice under Merritts v. Richards.