Al Saikali writes: Until recently, individuals whose information was compromised as a result of a company suffering a data breach faced an uphill battle when suing the company in a class action lawsuit. Far more often than not, Courts dismissed the lawsuits or entered summary judgment in favor of defendants on grounds that the plaintiffs…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Data Breach Class Actions Can’t Survive Certification Without Expert Testimony on Classwide Damages
James (Jim) R. McCullagh and Amelia M. Gerlicher of Perkins Cole recap the status and issues in a class action lawsuit against Hannaford Bros: This is the latest opinion in the ongoing litigation arising out of a massive data breach suffered by Hannaford Bros. grocery stores. In re Hannaford Bros. Privacy Litigation, __F. Supp. 2d __,…
Weather Shield employees find out they are identity theft victims once again
Back in April 2011, I noted that employees of Schield Family Brands were being alerted to a possible breach after there were 87 reported cases of ID theft/fraud affecting employees. Schield Family Brands includes four central Wisconsin window and door manufacturers: Weather Shield, Peachtree, Vetter and Crestline. At the time, the Secret Service took over the investigation as…
Latvian hacker prepared to turn to EU Court of Human Rights in regard to U.S. request for his extradition
The Baltic Course reports: Cyber-crime suspect from Riga Deniss Calovskis has turned to the European Court of Human Rights with a petition against the request from the United States for his extradition, LETA was informed by attorney Saulvedis Varpins. The attorney said that according to announcements made by U.S. officials in the past, cyber-crimes in…
Vernon Township ordered to pay court costs after suing hapless recipients of employees’ SSN
Remember that ridiculous lawsuit by Vernon Township against individuals to whom it had accidentally released employees’ Social Security numbers? There’s an update. Jessica Masulli Reyes reports: The individuals who received the Social Security numbers of 119 Vernon employees were ordered by a judge to sign certification saying that the confidential information was deleted and not disseminated….
Pointer: A consolidated view on data breaches in 2012
Neira Jones has been posting a series of articles on breaches that readers of this blog might find interesting. See Part 1 and Part 2 of her commentary.