University of Pennsylvania
PHILADELPHIA – Lawyers are jumping on the data breach that affected the University of Pennsylvania on Halloween, when a hacker sent mass emails to accounts linked to its graduate school threatening “all your data will be leaked.”
Since Milberg, PLLC and Federman & Sherwood filed the first proposed class action on Nov. 3 in Philadelphia federal court, seven more federal lawsuits have followed. The suits claim UPenn broke its contract to adequately safeguard private information.
“Now, and for the rest of their lives, Plaintiff and class members will have to deal with the danger of identity thieves possessing and misusing their private information,” the Nov. 3 suit says.
“Even those class members who have yet to experience identity theft have to spend time responding to the breach and are at an immediate and heightened risk of all manners of identity theft as a direct and proximate result of the data breach.”
The hacker or hackers wrote a short message to alumni and students in an email that looked like it was sent by the Graduate School of Education.
“We have terrible security practices and are completely unmeritocratic,” it says. It concludes, “Please stop giving us money” after decrying UPenn as “elitist” and “woke.”
Plaintiffs fear their information will now end up for sale on the dark web and blame UPenn for not using “reasonable security procedures.”
The cases will likely be consolidated, leaving lawyers to battle over who will lead the litigation o earn a higher share of any settlement or verdict. Milberg PLLC filed a second case on Nov. 4 and a third on Nov. 10 with Murphy Law Firm. Other law firms that have filed lawsuits are:
-Kopelowitz Ostrow has teamed with both Migliaccio & Rathod and Shamis & Gentile for two suits;
-Lynch Carpenter LLP; and
-Laukaitis Law of Puerto Rico.
Recent data breach settlements in Pennsylvania include $9 million with Wawa, $2.6 million with NCB Management Services and $65 million with Lehigh Valley Health Network. Reports say the UPenn data breach affected 1.2 million.
Milberg PLLC would seem to have a leg up on competitors for a lead counsel position as the first firm to file. Its site touts its data breach practice, which had a leadership position on the Equifax case that resulted in the largest data breach settlement – $380.5 million.
Lawyers took home nearly $80 million from that case after objections that fee award was unreasonable were rejected.
