A federal district court found that a plaintiff sufficiently pleaded claims for financial elder abuse and unfair conduct where the defendant bank’s employees were trained to recognize red flags of fraud but still processed multiple large cash withdrawals by an elderly person who was the victim of a scam. Atkins v. Wells Fargo Nat’l Assoc., No. 4:25-cv-05637-KAW (N.D. Cal. Dec. 22, 2025).
Lavonne Atkins suffered from hearing loss and cognitive decline. In July 2024, when she was 87 years old, her computer screen turned blue and a message appeared indicating that her identity had been stolen. Lavonne called the number displayed on her screen and spoke to an individual who identified himself as Mike Dawson and claimed to be with Wells Fargo. He told her that her identity had been stolen and that her bank accounts were at risk. She then received an official-looking letter purporting to authorize Mike Dawson to represent her interests with Wells Fargo and other financial institutions. Mike convinced her to make multiple withdrawals of $17,000 in cash from various Wells Fargo branches on the same day. An employee at one branch noticed that Lavonne was on the phone with someone at the time of the withdrawal and authorized the withdrawal of only $5,000 instead of the $17,000 Lavonne had requested.
Mike later told Lavonne that someone was trying to access her Charles Schwab account. With the help of others, he convinced her to move more than $425,000 from Schwab to Wells Fargo. In July and August 2024, Lavonne made eight visits to various Wells Fargo branches within 10 days, withdrawing $30,000 in cash each time. After making the cash withdrawals, she would give the cash to young men who met her outside of her apartment building.
In August 2024, Lavonne purchased a $99,000 bank draft at a Wells Fargo branch, but employees contacted law enforcement, which intercepted the check and returned it to her.
In May 2025, Lavonne filed a lawsuit in federal court against Wells Fargo, alleging elder financial abuse in violation of California’s Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act and unfair conduct statute. Wells Fargo filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.
The federal district court noted that, under Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 15610.30, financial elder abuse is defined as taking, secreting, appropriating, or retaining an elder adult’s property for a wrongful use with an intent to defraud or with undue influence, or assisting in such conduct, where a defendant knew or should have known that the conduct would be harmful to the elder adult. It rejected Wells Fargo’s assertion that the claim should be dismissed because Lavonne could not plead that Wells Fargo had assisted in the financial abuse perpetrated by Mike Dawson and his associates with actual knowledge of their wrongful conduct. Because actual knowledge of the underlying fraud may be pleaded generally, Lavonne’s allegations that there were several red flags of fraud that Wells Fargo employees were trained to recognize, such as an elderly person suddenly seeking to make large cash withdrawals that were inconsistent with their banking history, a dubious reason for wanting the cash, and talking on the phone with someone while making withdrawals, were sufficient to allege actual knowledge of fraud. In addition, Lavonne’s allegation that tellers disbursed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Lavonne but one Wells Fargo employee, suspecting fraud, did not process the entire withdrawal Lavonne had requested, sufficiently alleged actual knowledge of the fraud.
The court also found that Lavonne had sufficiently alleged a claim of unfair conduct under Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200 by pleading that Wells Fargo employees had caused her loss of funds by processing suspicious withdrawals. As a result, she lost $257,000, and Wells Fargo gained overdraft charges due to the withdrawals. In addition, Lavonne’s allegation of unfair conduct was derivative because it was based on the same facts as the financial elder abuse claim, i.e., because the financial elder abuse claim survived, the unfair conduct claim also survived.
The federal district court denied Wells Fargo’s motion to dismiss.
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