Robinhood has settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a 20-year-old trader who killed himself last summer after mistakenly believing he owed $730,000 to the online broker.
Alexander Kearns,20, was trading on June 11 last year using the Robinhood app when the app suddenly put a hold on his account and showed a negative balance of $730,000 and that he needed to pay over $170,000 in the coming days.
“He thought he blew up his life,” Kearns’ dad, Dan Kearns, said in an interview with CBS last year. “He thought he screwed up beyond repair.”
Kearns, a University of Nebraska student reportedly jumped in front of an approaching freight train on June 12 after leaving a suicide note detailing his predicament at finding the negative balance.