Coffman, Das, Ross, Viergever And Williams Defeat Federal Data Breach Class Action

Daniel Coffman (Associate-Washington, DC), Anjali Das (Partner-Chicago, IL), David Ross (Partner-Washington, DC), Kim Viergever (Of Counsel-Denver, CO) and Ryan Williams (Partner-Denver, CO) obtained dismissal with prejudice of a federal data breach class action filed against a services vendor for mental health care providers in the District of Colorado. The case comprised eight consolidated class actions brought by 15 named plaintiffs that arose out of a ransomware incident that involved the personal information of almost 4.3 million individuals and included sensitive information such as health information and Social Security numbers. The court agreed that all of the named plaintiffs lack Article III standing, dissecting each of their alleged theories of harm and coming down on the side of the more reasoned courts that have found these types of theories fail to establish standing – public disclosure of private information, increased spam, diminution in value of PHI/PII, emotional distress and future harm. The court concluded that "Plaintiffs have failed to allege injuries in fact that are fairly traceable to the Defendants' complained-of conduct," and issued a judgment dismissing the plaintiffs' claims with prejudice and closing the case.