There has been a settlement in litigation stemming from a breach previously noted on DataBreaches. Without admitting guilt or wrongdoing, Illinois Gastroenterology Group has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to settle claims from an October 2021 data breach first disclosed in April 2022. The incident involved unnamed threat actors accessing and exfiltrating data on more than 227,000 patients.
Top Class Actions reports that the flat sum settlement for individuals is as follows:
Class members whose Social Security numbers or biometrics were compromised and all California subclass members can receive a cash payment of $150. Class members whose Social Security numbers were not compromised but whose health information was breached can receive a cash payment of $50.
Class members who experienced damages as a result of the data breach can choose to receive reimbursement for documented losses instead of the flat rate payments described above. The settlement allows claimants to receive up to $200 for ordinary losses, three hours of lost time at $25 per hour, and up to $5,000 for extraordinary monetary losses.
The case is McNicholas, et al. v. Illinois Gastroenterology Group PLLC, Case No. 22LA00000173, in the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit Court of Lake County, Illinois. The official settlement site is IGGSettlement.com
As it has done with other settlements, DataBreaches checked the terms of the settlement for any provisions about improving data security. For the 113-page settlement agreement, this was the only provision:
3.3 Injunctive Relief. IGG has implemented and shall continue to implement data enhancement measures to provide security for Plaintiffs’ and Settlement Class Members’ PII, PHI, and PBI. Costs associated with these security enhancement measures have been paid and will be paid by IGG separate and apart from other settlement benefits.