The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed a putative class action against Barnes & Noble last week based on an incident in 2012 in which criminals tampered with payment card PIN pad terminals to steal customer payment card information from retail stores in nine states. The court’s decision highlights an important difference between the legal concepts of an “injury-in-fact” (which is necessary to support a finding of Article III standing so as to be able to maintain a case in federal court) and “damages” (which must be alleged to maintain many causes of action, such as for breach of contract). Although a plaintiff may have sufficiently alleged an “injury-in-fact” to enable a federal court to consider the case, those same allegations may be insufficient to allow the plaintiff to withstand a motion to dismiss.