Category: In the News - Page 64

Consumers might be able to recover damages for the inherent value of their personal information stolen during the breach based upon Marriott’s own valuation of that same data.

A federal judge in Maryland has granted class certification in a data breach impacting over 133 million American consumers against hotel chain Marriott and its data security vendor Accenture, clearing the way for the litigation to move forward. The Court will allow the case to proceed as a class action on behalf of the first group of claimants the parties selected – an initial group of approximately 45 million consumers in California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, and New York. The lawsuit stems from a data breach Marriott discovered in 2018 after it acquired Starwood, in which, by its own admission, 133.7 million guest records of Starwood customers were compromised. Marriott acknowledged in 2019 that the records included approximately 5.25 million unencrypted passport numbers and 20.3 million encrypted passport numbers, among other sensitive personal information regarding hotel stays.

In granting class certification, Judge Paul Grimm of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Maryland issued a 70-plus page opinion that made clear he was certifying the case for potential trial, rather than for a pending settlement (as occurs in most other data breach cases). The opinion allows the plaintiffs to seek damages related to overpayment for hotel rooms, as well as statutory and nominal damages. The Court also found that consumers might be able to recover damages for the inherent value of their personal information stolen during the breach based upon Marriott’s own valuation of that same data.

DiCello Levitt Gutzler partner Amy Keller, Hausfeld partner James Pizzirusso, and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll partner Andrew N. Friedman are Co-Lead Plaintiffs’ counsel in the case. They issued the following joint statement:

“After three years of hard-fought litigation, the Court issued a well-reasoned opinion which provides a path forward to hold Marriott accountable for its egregious, four-year data breach. While many companies do the right thing and work to help their customers after a data breach, Marriott and Accenture chose to deny responsibility, vigorously attempting to convince the Court that they cannot be held liable to anyone impacted by the breach. We look forward to presenting our evidence to a jury.

The valuation of personal information is still fairly new territory for many Courts, and this is the first case to reach class certification on the issue. While the Court precluded our expert on this point, it also recognized that we might have the ability to introduce the value that Marriott itself derived from its customers’ data at trial as a component of damages the class sustained. The Court also accepted our experts’ damages methodology that Marriott and Starwood guests overpaid when making hotel reservations because of substandard security. Finally, the Court found that we could seek to recover nominal damages and statutory damages in some states. Marriott and Accenture are facing significant liability here, and we look forward to holding them to their legal and moral responsibilities.”

Filed in January 2018, the lawsuit alleges that Starwood, and later Marriott, took more than four years to discover the long-running data breach. Marriott became the world’s largest hotel chain when it acquired Starwood that same year.

Some Marriott International Inc. guests were granted class status by a Maryland federal judge in litigation over a major data breach that compromised the personal information of 133.7 million guests at its Starwood-branded hotels, while others classes were denied certification.

Plaintiffs filed a would-be class action alleging that Marriott took more than four years to discover the breach and nearly three months to notify its customers of their exposed information.

Judge Paul W. Grimm of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland rejected Marriott’s argument that certification should be denied because not all of the class members have demonstrated that they’ve suffered an injury.

The plaintiffs don’t need to demonstrate that every class member has standing at the class certification stage, Grimm said in his Tuesday order.

Read “Marriott Guests Get Partial Class Certification in Breach Suit,” Bloomberg Law. (Subscription required.)

A Maryland federal judge certified eight classes of Marriott International Inc. guests in multidistrict litigation over a major data breach that compromised the personal information of more than 100 million guests at its Starwood-branded hotels, although some other classes were denied certification.

U.S. District Judge Paul W. Grimm granted certification on Tuesday to eight of 13 potential guest classes with claims against Marriott or Accenture LLP, a consulting company that worked with Marriott-owned Starwood Hotels and Resorts Inc. at the time the data breach was discovered in 2018.

The ruling certifies potentially millions of class members spanning six states that were included in an initial 10 bellwether cases and an estimated 47.7 million exposed customer records associated with the bellwether states, the judge said.

. . .

The classes are represented by Andrew Friedman of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Amy Keller of DiCello Levitt Gutzler LLC and James Pizzirusso of Hausfeld LLP.

Click through to read “8 Classes of Marriott Guests Certified in Data Breach MDL,” Law360

More than 60 million Americans in the nonunion private sector workforce have been shut out of the court system by companies that force them to arbitrate in the event of a dispute, according to a 2019 study by Professor Alexander J.S. Colvin of the ILR School at Cornell University. But given the costs, many of those same workers are shut out of arbitration, too. Employment lawyers are often reluctant to take arbitration cases at all because the hours required don’t always justify the potential reward, particularly when low wage workers are seeking justice.

Joseph M. Sellers, co-chair of our Civil Rights & Employment practice, was quoted by Capital & Main in an article examining the impact of forced arbitration on the U.S. workforce. Currently, more than 60 million Americans are subject to forced arbitration, preventing them from using the court system to resolve work-related disputes.

“Low-wage workers have the least bargaining power. Whatever the employer insists on, they are going to agree to.”

Kigali (AFP) – The family of “Hotel Rwanda” hero Paul Rusesabagina announced Saturday it has filed a $400 million lawsuit in the United States over his alleged abduction and torture.

Rusesabagina is currently serving a 25-year prison term on terrorism charges after a trial his supporters say was a sham and riddled with irregularities.

“The complaint alleges that the Government of Rwanda and high-ranking Rwandan officials conspired to facilitate and execute an elaborate plot to lure Paul Rusesabagina from his home in Texas to Rwanda, where he would be tortured and illegally detained for the remainder of his life,” the family and his lawyers said in a statement.

A copy of the lawsuit seen by AFP indicates that it was filed in a Washington DC court on February 22. It was served on the Rwandan government on March 8.

Rusesabagina’s family and lawyers will hold a press conference in Washington on Wednesday to announce further details of the suit, which is seeking at least $400 million (380 million euros) in compensation as well as punitive damages.

The lawsuit names the government of Rwanda, President Paul Kagame and other figures including the former justice minister and intelligence chief.

Cohen Milstein is counsel to Paul Rusesabagina and his family in this FSIA, TVPRA human rights lawsuit.

When Laura Baxter was accused of monopolising the attention of actor Tom Cruise aboard Scientology’s Caribbean cruise ship in 2004, she says her punishment was to be locked in an “extremely hot” engine room of the Freewinds ship.

She was shouted at by church officials and then for three days she says she was only allowed to leave to eat for a few minutes at a time or return to her room to sleep for a few hours. She had to urinate in a bin out of fear of being punished for going to the bathroom unaccompanied, she alleges.

Cohen Milstein’s Theodore J. Leopold, Manuel J. Dominguez, and Brendan Schneiderman are representing three individuals in a human trafficking and forced labor lawsuit against the Church of Scientology and five Scientology-affiliated corporations for violations of the United States Code Chapter 77 of Title 18 and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Read the complete case study for more information on Baxter, et. al. v. Church of Scientology International.

A trio of Australian residents have launched legal action against organizations connected to the Church of Scientology over allegations of child trafficking, covering up multiple sexual assaults, and forced labor.

Read the complete article at The Saturday Paper.

Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals drug purchasers nabbed initial approval of a $485 million global settlement struck in March over claims the drugmaker manipulated the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s generic-drug approval process to box out competitors.

U.S. District Court Judge Nathanial M. Gorton preliminary approved the two deals on Thursday in Massachusetts federal court and signed off on a proposed order laid out by the parties. Under the terms of the deals, $340 million is designated to direct purchasers and $145 million will go to end-payors such as health care plans.

In the multidistrict litigation, the end-payors asserted that Ranbaxy erroneously acquired exclusivity periods for certain drugs, which set back the launch of generic versions and maintained inflated prices. The drug wholesalers said they then fell victim to the high prices as a result of the alleged scheme.

The claims asserted by the parties came after the FDA and the U.S. Department of Justice initiated investigations into Ranbaxy, which culminated in guilty pleas and a $500 million fine in 2013 for lying to regulators and selling drugs that didn’t meet federal safety standards.

. . .

The direct purchasers are represented by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, Hilliard Shadowen LLP, Radice Law Firm PC, Sperling & Slater PC, Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP, Wexler Wallace LLP, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and Nussbaum Law Group PC.

Click through the link to access the complete Law360 article, “Ranbaxy Buyers’ $485M Deal in Generics MDL Gets Initial Nod.”

Three Australian residents have accused Scientology of child trafficking, covering up multiple sexual assaults, forced labor and other abuses in a significant legal claim lodged in a Florida court overnight.

The plaintiffs, Australian Gawain Baxter and residents Laura Baxter and Valeska Paris, are seeking significant “compensatory and punitive damages” against Scientology leader David Miscavige and five Church-related organizations for alleged human trafficking.

Remote work challenges the framework of class and collective actions, raising tactical questions about jurisdiction and whether a work-from-home employee’s geographical location may affect their participation in such suits, attorneys say.

Many remote workers now do their jobs in a different state from the one they used to work in, having abandoned daily commutes to their offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., or Boston to stay at home in surrounding states.

The rising prevalence of remote work raises logistical questions for wage and hour class and collective actions, attorneys say.

This situation may amplify the jurisdictional questions raised by the 2017 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court where the justices said individuals outside of California who claimed they were injured by a drugmaker’s product could not join a class action filed in the Golden State because they had no connection to that jurisdiction.

In August, the Sixth and Eighth Circuits ruled that individuals may not join a collective action filed in one state by adding their own allegations concerning a defendant’s violations in a different state.

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Shifting Jurisdictional Strategy

As long as remote workers maintain a connection to their particular office, they will be in a better position when it comes to specific jurisdiction in a collective action, said Christine Webber, a partner and co-chair of the civil rights and employment practice group with worker-side firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.

“I think that the people working remotely who still have a connection to a particular office have a pretty good argument that there’s still jurisdiction over their [Fair Labor Standards Act] violations,” she said. “It’s not illegal that somebody worked over 40 hours a week. It’s illegal not to pay them overtime for it and that payroll processing and everything was happening at the office where they used to go in physically, presumably.”

Not every aspect of a claim needs to have happened in the same physical location, she said.

A Class-Collective Divide

The differences between class and collective action mechanisms may also shape group litigation involving remote workers, attorneys said.

FLSA collective actions require members to affirmatively join the suit under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b).

By contrast, for class actions brought under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, class members must opt out, and the named plaintiffs are typically viewed as the parties to the suit.

That distinction may come into play in courts that say they must have personal jurisdiction over opt-in plaintiffs to a collective action, Webber said.

“Then, I would point out … courts have tended to go differently for Rule 23, where you’re looking at the jurisdiction over the named plaintiff, not every individual class member,” she said.

Similarly Situated at Home

Webber said she has no doubt that you can have workers who are similarly situated who are not all in the same physical space because she has represented workers such as visiting nurses who do home health care visits.

The nurses may check in in the morning to get their assignments at the same office, but then they go from patient residence to patient residence, Webber said. It’s the same with drivers for ride-hailing services and Amazon drivers, she said.

“You can still show they’re subject to the same terms and conditions, same work rules, same policies and practices and same job duties, etc., such that a class action is appropriate,” she said. “I don’t think that is or should be a concern at all in terms of class certification or collective action certification.”