Target Data Breach Class Action Lawsuits Consolidated in Minn.

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

UPDATE 1: A federal judge has set a number of key dates in the Target Data Breach MDL, including an April 1, 2016 deadline to have the consolidated class action lawsuit ready for trial.

UPDATE 2: 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 3: The Target data breach class action settlement received final approval on Nov. 17, 2015.

UPDATE 4: On Apr. 21, 2016, plaintiffs in the multidistrict litigation against Target Corp. over the infamous 2013 data breach are asking the Eighth Circuit Court to ignore claims made by an objector in the settlement.

UPDATE 5: 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!

UPDATE 6: On Aug. 22, 2019, Top Class Actions viewers started getting checks from the Target data breach class action settlement worth as much as $1,201.88. Congratulations to everyone who filed a claim and got PAID!

When Target Corp. announced a data breach over the 2013 holiday season, customers filed dozens of class action lawsuits. The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) ordered Wednesday that 33 class action lawsuits in 18 districts, and possibly up to 71 other “tag-along” cases, will be brought to the court in Target’s Minneapolis headquarters.

The decision is a win for Target, who had sought to bring the class action lawsuits into its home state. Its entire information technology department is located in Minneapolis, Minn., so that most of the potential witnesses both for the company and for the plaintiffs reside in the area. All but four of the class action lawsuits name Target as the sole defendant.

On the other hand, the plaintiffs in the Target class action lawsuit had argued for centralization in a variety of different district courts, including jurisdictions in California, the Northern District of Illinois, the District of Colorado, and the Middle and Eastern Districts of Louisiana. Robert Clifford of Clifford Law Offices, the lawyer who spoke on behalf of dozens of plaintiffs and their law firms at the hearing last week, lobbied for the Target litigation to be placed in the Northern District of Illinois with U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman. He claimed that centralizing the litigation in this jurisdiction would benefit the plaintiff group because Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has taken a lead role in a multi-state investigation into Target’s alleged mishandling of customer data.

“On the basis of the papers filed and hearing session held, we find that these actions involve common questions of fact, and that centralization in the District of Minnesota will serve the convenience of the parties and witnesses and promote the just and efficient conduct of this litigation,” wrote the judges in the panel. “We are persuaded that the most appropriate location for this litigation is the District of Minnesota. … All actions in the district are pending before Judge Paul A. Magnuson, a jurist with extensive experience in multidistrict litigation. Moreover, the District of Minnesota is easily accessible and relatively centrally located for the parties to this litigation, which is nationwide in scope.”

Target announced December 19 that the data from credit and debit cards swiped in stores between November 27 and December 15 had been stolen through what is known as “track data,” a process in which criminal create counterfeit payment cards by encoding the credit or debit card information onto a different card. Any card with a magnetic strip can be utilized. The announcement sparked a flood of class action lawsuit filings by consumers, banks and shareholders.

The personal information of up to 70 million customers was compromised during the Target data breach, such as the individuals’ names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. As many as 40 million customers may have had their credit and debit card numbers stolen, as well.

Target has been investigated by both the U.S. Senate and the Federal Trade Commission, and is therefore at risk of fines and regulatory scrutiny throughout the class action lawsuit proceedings and in the future. The Senate report pointed to “multiple warnings” about the vulnerability of Target’s customers’ personal and financial data the retailer ignored, and indicated the retailer also made made several missteps putting their customers’ data at risk. For example, the retailer allowed a third-party vendor to have network access, but the vendor allegedly relied on weak information security practices that may have allowed the hackers to access Target’s network.

The Senate report revealed that Target failed to take action though it received multiple warnings that malware was being installed on the company’s internal network and that the retail giant failed to properly isolate its most sensitive network assets from third-party vendors.

The plaintiffs in the Target class action lawsuits are all seeking to hold the company accountable for negligence, invasion of privacy, negligent representation, breach of contract, and concealment, in addition to violations of the federal Stored Communications Act, state law consumer protection statutes and state law data breach statutes.

The Target Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit is In re: Target Corp. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, MDL No. 2522, in the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.