Excellus Data Breach Class Action

Western District of New York

Case No. 15-cv-06569

Class Action Lawsuit

United States Federal District Court Judge Elizabeth A. Wolford, who is presiding over a set of 14 proposed class action lawsuits involving the Excellus data breach, named Hadley L. Matarazzo of the Rochester law firm Faraci Lange and Robin L. Greenwald of Weitz & Luxenberg in New York City as interim co-lead class counsel, citing their experience handling complex class actions.

Excellus Data BreachFaraci Lange and Weitz & Luxenberg, which together represent customers who claim their Excellus data was breached, had proposed a “comprehensive” plan for litigating the suits and had shown that they are able to work expeditiously and cooperatively with other firms representing customers of hacked Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, stated Judge Wolford.

“Furthermore, the Faraci/Weitz group is the only proposed structure with significant involvement from a local law firm, which the court believes is important to effectively represent the class,” Judge Wolford said.

“Robin and I were pleased to see the court’s order appointing us co-lead counsel as well as Eric Gibbs of Girard Gibbs LLP and Lynn A. Toops of Cohen & Malad LLP as the executive committee members.,” Matarazzo stated. “We all look forward to working on behalf everyone who has been affected by this data breach.”

The Excellus class action lawsuit alleges that the companies failed to protect customer information, waited too long to tell customers about the breach and did not give customers adequate information about how to protect themselves in the wake of the breach.

The first case is Fero et al v. Excellus Health Plan Inc. et al., case number 6:15-cv-06569, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York.

Recent News

Decision to Dismiss Excellus Data Breach Class Action Reversed in Favor of Plaintiffs

U.S. District Court Judge Elizabeth A. Wolford, who is presiding over the Excellus data breach class action, reinstated certain plaintiffs’ claims in a decision released on Friday that reconsidered and reversed her previous ruling dismissing those claims. In a decision last February, Judge Wolford ruled that four of the twenty named plaintiffs in the class action could not proceed with their claims as they had not alleged any misuse of their personally identifiable informatio...

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How to Protect Yourself from Identity Theft after Your Data Has Been Breached

Following the unprecedented data breach at Excellus, the 10 million plus affected people are looking for ways to protect themselves from impending risk of future identity theft. One of the best ways to protect oneself is to make sure that passwords are changed regularly and to not maintain the same password across various accounts. In addition, freezing one’s credit with all three major credit bureaus is an excellent way to be sure that no unauthorized credit is issued ...

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Plaintiffs Seek Reconsideration of Court’s Decision in Excellus Data Breach Case

On February 22, 2017, Judge Elizabeth A. Wolford of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York issued a 90-page decision granting in part and denying in part Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss. In her decision, she dismissed the claims brought by those plaintiffs who had not yet experienced any actual identity theft or fraud, including four of the twenty named plaintiffs. Among other things, she reasoned that these plaintiffs, and those others aff...

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Cybersecurity Attacks are 2016’s Leading Cause of Healthcare Data Breaches

The top ten data breaches within the healthcare industry in 2016 were caused primarily by cybersecurity attacks such as ransomware and unauthorized access. In 2016, approximately 300 data breach incidents were reported to the Office for Civil Rights, among which 95 were caused by an IT-related or hacking occurrence and 125 stemmed from unauthorized access or disclosure. Theft of devices or records caused 58 of the reported breaches, while 16 were accredited to loss and seven ...

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