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Local woman says she never would have signed up with health insurer if she knew how careless it was with her data
By adamg on Thu, 02/26/2015 - 6:53am
A Malden woman has filed what will likely be the start of a flood of lawsuits against Anthem, Inc. for a data breach affecting millions of Anthem and Blue Cross/Blue Shield customers.
In her suit, filed in US District Court in Boston, Lisa Diane Daniels seeks to become the lead plaintiff in a class action against the insurance company on behalf of up to 80 million Americans "whose personal, financial, or health information was compromised by the Anthem data breach."
Plaintiff suffered actual injury and damages in paying money to and purchasing insurance from Anthem during the Anthem data breach that she would not have paid had Anthem disclosed that it lacked computer systems and data security practices adequate to safeguard customers' personal and financial information and had Anthem provided timely and accurate notice of the data breach.
Plaintiff was overcharged for health insurance purchased from Anthem during the Anthem data breach in that a portion of the purchase price included the costs of Anthem providing reasonable and adequate safeguards and data security measures to protect customers' financial and personal data, which Anthem failed to provide and, as a result, Plaintiff did not receive what she paid for and was overcharged.
Free tagging:
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Complete Daniels complaint | 188.47 KB |
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Comments
Seriously?
That is a weak argument.
Look, I'm the first to say that Anthem shouldn't be allowed to run an abandoned blog, let alone anything with important data. I'm all for a suit demanding recompense due to failing to secure all of that information. But to claim that someone was overcharged because of IT safeguards is just a bad argument because it fails to address the actual point of the matter, the damages or potential damages of the security breech.
The problem with what is claimed is that the logical defense is to show that Anthem actually paid very little for their security (hardly a counter-intuitive position), and that they are happy to refund the plaintiff that quarter of a cent for her policy. In fact, the company feels awful and is prepared to refund all 80,000,000 people their quarter of a cent, and to that end has put $200,000 in escrow.
Good for her
Say what you'd like about class action lawsuits and class action attorneys, and how class action lawsuits reward class action attorneys...
For a class action lawsuit to be successful, some more soul has to put their foot forward and file a suit. It's generally an unpleasant process for the plaintiff. But someone has to do it. Eventually it benefits everyone (including me) who was probably harmed here.
is that really the case?
You write as if this is some huge effort being done by some plaintiff who has finally had enough and decides to take on the complex process of filing suit all by themselves and taking on huge personal/financial risk ...
I don't think this is what really happens in cases like this? I suspect it's more common for the lawyers to come up with lawsuit ideas at which point they then go "shopping" for plaintiffs willing to sign on.
agreed
They do! If you are a member or what not, you'll probably get a letter to join such lawsuit.
But its a scam.. sure it may send a 'message' but in the end the only people who benefit from these lawsuits are the lawyers. Not the consumers.
You know who I'd rather sue?
The stupid-poopy-heads who actually hacked Anthem.