Spokeo

Subscribe to Spokeo via RSS

A federal judge recently held that mere allegations that a healthcare provider’s patient information portal failed to utilize sufficient security measures, without allegations of an actual breach, were insufficient to confer standing on the plaintiff. The case, Williams-Diggins v. Mercy Health—which was pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of…

On May 11, 2017, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a $12 million judgment against Experian Information Solutions, Inc. (“Experian”) in a class action against the credit reporting bureau alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”). Relying on the standard set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, the circuit court held the named plaintiff lacked constitutional standing because he suffered no “concrete” injury from the alleged statutory violation.

The claims in the lawsuit involved the FCRA requirement that credit reporting agencies must, upon request, clearly and accurately disclose to a consumer the “sources of the information” in the consumer’s file at the time of the request. 15 U.S.C. § 1681g(a)(2). As part of a background check in connection with obtaining security clearance, the lead plaintiff, Michael Dreher, obtained a series of credit reports from Experian which listed a delinquent credit card account identified as Advanta associated with his name. Unbeknownst to Dreher, Advanta has been closed since 2010 and a company named CardWorks had been appointed as a servicer for the company  acquiring Advanta’s receivables.
Continue Reading Fourth Circuit Vacates $12M FCRA Class Action Judgment Against Experian

On October 12, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied a petition for an en banc rehearing of its September 12 decision in Galaria, et al. v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company (Nos. 15-3386/3387). In that decision, a divided Sixth Circuit panel revived a suit against Nationwide arising from the 2012 theft by hackers of personal information of approximately 1.1 million individuals.

In Galaria, the plaintiffs brought claims alleging invasion of privacy, negligence, bailment, and statutory violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) following the breach. The complaint alleged that the defendant failed to secure the plaintiffs’ data against a breach. A federal district court dismissed those claims, holding in part that the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing because they failed to allege a cognizable injury in fact. To establish standing under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, a plaintiff must suffer an injury in fact, fairly traceable to the defendant’s challenged conduct, that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.Continue Reading Sixth Circuit: Substantial Risk of Harm and Mitigation Costs Sufficient to Confer Standing in Data Breach Case

Last week, the decision in the Spokeo case influenced a California court’s decision to certify a class in a Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) case. The class of applicants who claim that S2Verify, a background check company, unlawfully included criminal information in their reports, includes approximately 4,500 individuals who were subject to S2Verify reports from…