Judge Denies Comcast, Citrix Motion for Extension to Respond to Data Breach Suit
U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks for Southern Florida in Fort Lauderdale denied Citrix and Comcast’s joint Feb. 13 motion for an extension of time to respond to plaintiff Alexander Nunn’s negligence complaint (see 2401080014) involving Citrix’s October data breach, said…
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the judge's order Tuesday (docket 0:24-cv-60029). Citrix's deadline to respond to the complaint is March 11 and Comcast's is March 19, and the defendants seek extensions to 30 days after the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation reaches a decision on transfer or consolidation of cases involving the data breach. The JPML’s hearing on those cases is set for March 28 in U.S. District Court for South Carolina in Charleston, and it would be “tedious and wasteful” for the defendants to spend resources briefing cases that might be consolidated and transferred, said their motion. The defendants noted the March 28 hearing date, “but they fail to indicate if a final decision on transfer will be made at this hearing,” said Middlebrooks. While acknowledging that Comcast and Citrix want to avoid devoting resources to litigating the case before they know whether it will be consolidated in an MDL, the judge declined their motion, “as it would effectively result in a stay of these proceedings,” said the order. “I am not inclined to allow this case to lie dormant during the pendency of the proceedings before the MDL panel, especially where there is no reasonable expectation as to how long it will take the panel to render its decision,” it said. Nunn’s class action alleges Comcast and Citrix failed to adequately protect his and class members' personally identifiable information from data thieves in the data breach.