Plaintiff Julie Jones seeks to remand her California Invasion of Privacy Act case against Tonal Systems to state court, but she does’t dispute “the core factors demonstrating” that Tonal properly removed the case to federal court (see 2308070008), said the company’s opposition Thursday (docket 3:23-cv-01267) in U.S. District Court for Southern California in San Diego. Jones alleges Tonal, a maker of smart home fitness equipment, uses third parties' software to “secretly wiretap and eavesdrop on the private conversations of users of the chat features on Tonal’s website in real time” (see 2307110047). Jones never contests the company established the required elements to remove this putative class action to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act, said Tonal’s opposition. She nonetheless seeks remand based on the purported application of CAFA’s “home-state controversy exception,” it said. As the party seeking to invoke the exception, Jones “must proffer facts showing by a preponderance of the evidence that two-thirds of all proposed class members are California citizens,” it said. She hasn’t carried her burden, and her motion for remand “must be denied,” it said.
Amy Sue Radford seeks $1 million in punitive damages from Charter Communications for violating the 1974 Privacy Act when it gave or sold to direct marketers the “confidential address” she enrolled for herself and her children in Minnesota’s Safe at Home program while subscribing to Spectrum’s phone and internet service in July 2017, alleged her complaint Thursday in U.S. District Court for Minnesota in St. Paul. The program “is designed to help people who fear for their safety maintain a confidential address,” said her pro se complaint. “Many times program participants are survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking,” it said. Radford closed her Spectrum account in January 2021, and by March 2021, she began receiving at least two direct-marketing mailings a month addressed to “Amy Radford or current resident,” it said. In addition to the punitive damages for the “intrusion” into her “seclusion, solitude, and safety,” Radford wants the court to order Charter to remove her personally identifiable information from its database and to identify all third parties that Charter gave or sold her information to, said her complaint. A Charter spokesperson declined comment Friday.
Pro se plaintiff Venton Smith and defendant JPMorgan Chase filed a settlement notice (docket 3:23-cv-02804) Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. The parties reached a settlement in principle and are finalizing the agreement. When the settlement is final, Smith will move for dismissal with prejudice of his claims against Chase, expected within 60 days. The plaintiff claims his personally identifiable information was exposed in a 2019 Capital One data breach in which an Amazon Web Services employee stole data affecting about 106 million customers. Smith is suing more than 20 merchants, banks and credit reporting agencies, alleging negligence, unjust enrichment, breach of confidence and contract and violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law. Smith alleges at least 12 existing accounts were fraudulently accessed to buy unknown merchandise using his existing accounts for Jared Jewelers, American Express, Best Buy, Capital One, Chase, Citibank, Macy’s and Nordstrom, for a total $92,300 in loans, merchandise and products.
Peter Behrens, plaintiff in the class action against Genworth Financial that's pending in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia, submitted an interested party response (docket 3083) Tuesday in partial opposition to plaintiff Bruce Bailey’s motion for centralization and transfer of related actions in MOVEit Customer Data Security Breach Litigation (see 2307120053). Behrens opposes Bailey's July motion to transfer based on the notice of related actions filed by Genworth Financial identifying the Behrens action as a case Genworth contends should be transferred to MDL 3083, said the filing before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. Behrens is “eligible for transfer,” and transfer is “neither necessary nor appropriate,” it said. Behrens’ complaint alleges Genworth failed to protect his personally identifiable information (PII) from “well-known threats by hackers” in Progress Software Corp.’s (PSC) May data breach. Behrens entrusted Genworth with his PII in order to buy a long-term care insurance policy, and Genworth “failed to protect that data,” said the response. Genworth entrusted Behrens’ data to Pension Benefit Information (PBI), with which Behrens “has no contractual relationship,” and PBI used PSC’s MOVEit file transfer software that contained “a vulnerability" to hackers,” it said. Though several entities are involved in the ultimate exposure of Behrens’ PII, the purpose of his action is “holding Genworth accountable for its failure to safeguard the information entrusted to it by Behrens and a class of 2.5 to 2.7 million similarly situated customers,” it said. Genworth isn't named as a defendant in the "vast majority" of the cases and tagalongs presented by the parties in favor of transfer, which Behrens identified as "unique cases covering unique data breaches including Johns Hopkins patients, California pensioners, Nebraska bank customers, and Louisiana driver’s license holders," in the opposition. “Naturally, Genworth would much prefer that Behrens’s case be transferred and centralized with over 40 other cases that are, as Genworth admits in its response … focused on the liability of entities other than Genworth,” said the opposition. Those are entities that Genworth “expressly blames for its obvious failure to protect 2.5 to 2.7 million Genworth customers’ most sensitive information,” it said: “To transfer Behrens’s case would benefit only Genworth and unnecessarily obscure Behrens’s path to hold Genworth accountable.”
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer set a motion hearing for Oct. 13 at 10 a.m. for Venton Smith's Thursday motion for a default judgment against Jared Jeweler in a privacy lawsuit involving the 2019 Capital One data breach, said his Monday text-only notice (docket 3:23-cv-02804) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. The videoconference will be via Zoom and is open to the media and public. The pro se plaintiff claims his personally identifiable information was exposed in a 2019 Capital One data breach in which an Amazon Web Services employee stole data affecting about 106 million customers. Smith is suing more than 20 merchants, banks and credit reporting agencies, alleging negligence, unjust enrichment, breach of confidence and contract and violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law. Smith alleges at least 12 existing accounts were fraudulently accessed to buy unknown merchandise using his existing accounts for Jared, American Express, Best Buy, Capital One, Chase, Citibank, Macy’s and Nordstrom, for a total $92,300 in loans, merchandise and products.
Craig Mariam, counsel for Gordon Rees, filed notice (docket 3083) Friday of four related cases in MOVEit Customer Data Security Breach Litigation against defendant Milliman Solutions before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML). The cases don't name MOVEit software provider Progress Software as a defendant. The four cases against actuarial firm Milliman Solutions, which provides insurance products to TruStage Financial Group, among others, allege Milliman violated its privacy policy that states it has security policies in place intended to ensure the security and integrity of all customers' personal data. The policy says “If Milliman forwards Personal Data to any third party, Milliman requires that those third parties have appropriate technical and organizational measures in place” to comply with its privacy policy, alleges plaintiff David Hale in Hale v. Milliman Solutions (docket 2:23-cv-01206), filed Aug. 8 in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle. The other related cases, in the same court, are Soto v. Milliman Solutions (docket 2:23-cv-01236), Jones v. Milliman Solutions (docket 2:23-cv-01246) and Gregory v. Milliman Solutions and TruStage Financial (docket 3:23-cv-00559). Plaintiffs in the four class actions suffered invasion of privacy, lost or diminished value of their personally identifiable information, lost time and opportunity costs for trying to mitigate consequences of the MOVEit data breach, and continued and increased risk to their PII, the notice said. Also Friday, Genworth Financial attorney Eamon Joyce of Sidley Austin filed a notice of related action (docket 3083) before the JPML for Herman Burkett Jr. v. Genworth Life and Annuity Insurance Co., in MOVEit Customer Data Security Breach Litigation. Defendant Herman Burkett of Dallas claims he suffered identity theft, fraud and harms he had no ability to mitigate due to Genworth’s “delayed notice” to customers about the late May MOVEit software data breach.
A related privacy class action,Adams v. Google (docket 23-cv-04191) is consolidated with Smith v. Google, said a Thursday consolidation order (docket 5:23-cv-03527) signed by U.S. District Judge Casey Pitts in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose. Plaintiffs allege U.S. consumers have been transmitting sensitive financial information to Google when they file their taxes online on H&R Block, TaxAct and TaxSlayer (see 2307170033). Plaintiff Mary Smith of DuPage County, Illinois, alleges Google Analytics’ tracking pixel, embedded in the JavaScript of online tax preparation websites, sent “massive amounts” of her private tax return information such as income, refund amounts, filing status and scholarship information to Google, without her consent, “to improve its ad business and other business tools,” said her July complaint. Disclosing tax return information without consent “is a crime,” as are aiding and abetting the unlawful disclosure of tax return information and inspecting unlawfully obtained tax return information, it said. Pitts ordered plaintiffs’ counsel to file a consolidated complaint within 45 days; an initial case management conference in the consolidated matter is scheduled for Oct. 12, 1 p.m. PDT.
Plaintiff James Miller’s claims that Pentagon Federal Credit Union, Verisk Analytics and Lead Intelligence record visitors’ electronic communications activities on PenFed’s website without their consent (see 2306200017) should be dismissed because Miller “claims no harm whatsoever,” said their motion Friday (docket 2:23-cv-04785) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles. Miller doesn’t claim, because it isn’t true, that PenFed “surreptitiously shared this data with third-parties apart from the alleged software service provider, or that this data was used for a nefarious purpose,” because it wasn’t, it said. His claims should be dismissed for lack of Article III standing because his allegations don’t establish a concrete harm, it said.
Sports apparel company Homage removed to U.S. District Court for Central California in Santa Ana a putative class action in which plaintiff Sonya Valenzuela claims Homage secretly enables and allows a third-party spyware company, Kustomer, to wiretap and eavesdrop on the private conversations of everyone who communicates through the chat feature at Homage.com, in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act. Homage “vehemently denies these allegations,” said its notice of removal Thursday (docket 8:23-cv-01601). Homage also vehemently denies Valenzuela’s case “is suitable for class treatment,” it said. Valenzuela’s complaint, filed July 14 in Orange County Superior Court, alleges Homage’s actions “are not incidental to facilitating e-commerce, nor are they undertaken in the ordinary course of business.” To the contrary, it says, Homage’s actions “violate industry norms and the legitimate expectations of consumers,” it said. Court records show Valenzuela as a party of record in dozens of lawsuits of various types since Jan. 1. The World Wildlife Fund recently said Valenzuela and her lawyer, Scott Ferrell of Pacific Trial Attorneys, are responsible for filing many nearly identical lawsuits against various entities (see 2307280032). Ferrell is also Valenzuela's attorney in the class action against Homage, which seeks injunctive relief, plus actual, statutory and punitive damages.
The parties in the Meta Pixel Healthcare Litigation asked the court to relate Hartley v. Meta Platforms to the consolidated class action, said a Tuesday joint administrative motion (docket 3:22-cv-03580) to consider relating cases in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. Plaintiffs in the consolidated action allege Meta used its business tools, including the Meta Pixel, “to intercept individually identifiable health information” from partner web properties. Similarly, plaintiff Hartley alleges the University of Chicago Medical Center “collects and shares the personally identifiable information and PHI of patients using a ‘Facebook Pixel,’” which the medical center installed on its web properties, said the motion. The consolidated action and Hartley “concern substantially the same parties, property, transaction, or event,” Meta’s alleged receipt of users’ health information via the Meta Pixel.