Target Customers, Banks Say Court Should Not Delay Discovery

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UPDATE: A federal judge has preliminarily approved a $10 million class action settlement. Details on how to file a claim for the Target data breach settlement can be found here.

UPDATE 2: On Jan. 27, 2016, an objection to the $10 million Target data breach class action lawsuit settlement deal was dismissed by the 8th Circuit on appeal.

UPDATE 3: On Feb. 1, 2017, the Eighth Circuit Court of appeals reversed the class certification and directed the district court to make a new ruling and explain its findings. According to the settlement website, claims will not be paid until class certification is resolved. This could take several more months. Please keep checking Top Class Actions for updates. We are following the case and will let our viewers know as soon as the class certification decision is made!

Target consumers, banks and credit unions who are part of a class action lawsuit against the retailer because of a massive data breach do not think the Minnesota federal court should grant the company’s request to delay discovery in the data breach multidistrict litigation.

“Fact discovery should begin and should not be delayed,” says the Financial Institution and Consumer Plaintiffs’ Joint Memorandum in Opposition to Target Corporations’s Motion to Stay Discovery.

“Federal courts disfavor staying discovery while a motion to dismiss is pending, and here, Target has not met its burden of demonstrating that its anticipated motion to dismiss will resolve all claims in its favor,” the memorandum states.

First the plaintiffs contend that based on similar data-breach lawsuits, the plaintiffs are very unlikely “to overcome a motion to dismiss in some form.”

Second, if Target gets the requested stay, it “would prejudice plaintiffs by further delaying the prosecution of their claims.”

Third and last, the plaintiffs say that Target’s arguments that the lawsuits filed by banks “will be dismissed” and those filed by Target customers “lack standing are premature and incorrect.”

The plaintiffs claim that Target is ignoring the facts by saying that the class action lawsuit filed by its customers lacks standing because of a “lack of harm” when considering how much personal information was stolen by hackers and the damage that can do.

The banks affected by the massive data breach “have incurred significant damages from Target’s data security breach,” the plaintiffs explained.

“Target’s bald assertion that it cannot be held liable for these damages under any theory of recovery because of arguments it intends to raise in a motion to dismiss, is simply wrong and does not meet the standard for staying all discovery,” the plaintiffs add.

“Neither argument warrants a stay of discovery,” the plaintiffs conclude.

In December 2013, Target announced to the public that there had been “a massive data security breach of approximately 110 million Target customer credit and debit card information in 2013.”

The first data-breach class action lawsuits were filed against the retailer in December 2013.

This data breach hurt Target customers across the country and caused “significant monetary losses to consumers and financial institutions,” the plaintiffs allege in their Target data-breach class action lawsuit memorandum.

Target executives told lawmakers in February that the company began investigating the data security breach on Dec. 12, 2013 after the Justice Department “warned the company about suspicious activity involving payment cards,” even though the hackers allegedly gained access to Target’s network on Nov. 12, 2013.

The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee said in a report released in March that “the hackers who breached Target’s system have sold, and continue to sell, the stolen information via black market internet forums,” which is where criminals are able to “purchase this stolen information and use it to make new, phony cards that can be used to make fraudulent purchases.”

The Senate committee also concluded that Target had a number of opportunities “‘to stop the attackers and prevent the massive data breach.'”

The plaintiffs are represented by Karl Cambronne, Jeffrey Bores, Bryan Bleichner of Chestnut Cambronne PA, Vincent Esades and David Woodward of Heins Mills & Olson PLC and Charles Zimmerman, J. Gordon Rudd Jr. and Brian C. Gudmundson of  Zimmerman Reed PLLC.

Target is represented by Wendy J. Wildung and Michael A. Ponto of Faegre Baker Daniels and Harold J. McElhinny, Jack W. Londen, Michael J. Agoglia, Rebekah Kaufman and David F. McDowell of Morrison & Foerster LLP.

The Target Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit MultiDistrict Litigation is In re: Target Corp. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, Case No. 0:14-md-02522, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.