44 Actions and Tagalongs Now in MOVEit MDL, Says Plaintiff in Push for Consolidation
The U.S. Judicial Panel for Multidistrict Litigation will be reviewing additional tagalong actions in MOVEit Customer Data Security Breach Litigation potentially for "years to come,” said plaintiff Bruce Bailey Friday in his consolidated reply (docket 3083) in further support of…
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a motion for centralization and transfer of related actions to the U.S. District Court in Minnesota. Since Bailey filed his initial motion to transfer, there are now 44 related actions and tagalongs representing 11 federal district courts, said the reply. Ten named defendants in the litigation, arising out of a data breach involving Progress Software Corp.’s MOVEit file transfer software, represent insurance companies, banks, educational institutions, and governmental entities who are alleged to use MOVEit. The software is also used under license by defendant Pension Benefit Information. Not all parties agree with transfer and consolidation. Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Health System filed responses in opposition to consolidation this month (see 230807006), saying Bailey’s motion to transfer said the “purportedly related actions” before the panel should be transferred and centralized because they all involve defendants PSC and PBI, but five actions were filed July 7-19 against the Johns Hopkins defendants in U.S. District Court for Maryland, “all asserting claims against the Johns Hopkins Defendants regarding the loss of data in their possession in a data breach"; three of those cases name PSC, but not PBI, they noted. Bailey acknowledged not all parties agree with transfer and consolidation but said no party to a related action contests that all related actions “are centrally related to the May 2023 hack and exfiltration of data from the MOVEit file transfer software.” The JPML focuses on “whether or not one or more issues of fact overlap, which all of the Related Actions here clearly do,” Bailey said. On the Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology’s argument that it possesses “additional legal and factual defenses not available to the corporate defendants” and seeks an assessment of the litigation’s merits that’s beyond the panel’s authority, Bailey said: “Any judge assigned to this MDL is perfectly capable of deciding motions that will be able to dispositively address the Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology’s position as a Defendant.” In addition to being a central location, the District of Minnesota “has one of the least congested dockets in the country,” and U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez has the first-filed action, the reply said.