Monthly Archives: April 2015

Sony Data Breach Coverage Litigation Settles


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As reported in news outlets, including Law360, Sony and its insurers have settled their data breach coverage litigation, two months after the New York appellate division heard oral argument.

Sony had sought coverage for numerous data breach class action lawsuits filed against it following the 2011 data breach into its PlayStation network.  Its general liability policies provided personal and advertising injury coverage for oral or written publication, in any manner, of material that violates a person’s right to privacy.  The trial court held that the insurers had no duty to defend because coverage applied only for violations of privacy committed by Sony, as the policyholder, and not by third parties who hacked into Sony’s network and stole personally identifiable information (“PII”). Read More

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Another Data Breach Class Action Dismissed for Lack of Injury


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On the heels of the Target settlement, another security data breach class action has been dismissed for lack of standing under Article III.  In the lawsuit In re Horizon Healthcare Servs., Inc. Data Breach Litig., 2015 WL 1472483 (D.N.J. Mar. 31, 2015), a federal district court held that class plaintiffs alleged neither sufficient injury nor causation to establish standing.

In that case, an unknown thief stole from the company’s headquarters two password-protected laptop computers containing personal information of company members.  Id. at *1.  The company reported the theft to law enforcement the next day.  A month later, it notified potentially affected members of the theft by letter and press release.  Id.  In its notification, the company informed members that “[d]ue to the way the stolen laptops were configured, we are not certain that all of the member information contained on the laptops is accessible.”  It also offered credit-monitoring protection.  Id. Read More

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Two Recent TCPA Cases: A Look at How They Can Affect Privacy Litigation


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Last week saw two separate Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) decisions in which federal district courts, one for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the other for the Northern District of Illinois, held no coverage existed for underlying TCPA litigation.  The decisions’ results were not surprising, as TCPA coverage claims have been wilting like Wisconsin’s lead over Duke in last night’s final.  What is interesting in the cases, Auto-Owners Ins. Co. v. Stevens & Ricci, Inc., No. 12-7228, 2015 WL 1456085 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 31, 2015) and Addison Automatics, Inc. v. Hartford Cas. Ins. Co., No. 13-1922, slip op. (N.D. Ill. Mar. 31, 2015), is that the courts reached their decisions on different bases.  The reasoning behind each basis can apply to other privacy litigation.

In Stevens & Ricci, the insured was sued in a class action for faxing over 18,000 unsolicited fax advertisements in violation of the TCPA, 47 U.S.C. § 227.  The underlying litigation alleged, among other claims, that the unsolicited faxes violated the privacy rights of class members who received them.  Id. at *1.  The insured’s policy defined “personal injury” and “advertising injury” in part as “oral or written publication of material that violates a person’s right of privacy.”  Id. at *2-3. Read More

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