Target Moves to Dismiss Data Breach Class Action Lawsuits

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UPDATE 1: Target’s motion to dismiss the data breach class action lawsuit was denied on Dec. 18, 2014. Although the judge did trim a few claims, the Target data breach lawsuit was left mostly intact.

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 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 5: 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 6: 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 7: On Aug. 22, 2019, Top Class Actions viewers started getting checks from the Target data breach class action settlementworth as much as $1,201.88.Congratulations to everyone who filed a claim and got PAID!

On Nov. 20, Target Corp. reasserted its motion to dismiss a consolidated data breach class action lawsuit brought against the company following an breach of the retailer’s credit and debit card information in November 2013. Target argues that the consumers whose banking and credit information was compromised during last year’s data breach failed to provide evidence that any fraudulent charges on their accounts could be traced back to the original Target data breach event.

Last week, Target submitted a reply brief in Minnesota federal court defending its previously submitted motion to dismiss the Target data breach lawsuit, which after consolidation represents over a hundred named plaintiffs from most states and a larger Class of Target consumers.

According to Target’s arguments, “Although plaintiffs assert in their opposition that they were injured as a direct result of Target’s actions, they have not and cannot point to specific factual allegations identifying any such injury in their Complaint.” Because the plaintiffs have not claimed that they actually incurred fraudulent charges in the year following the data breach and instead claim possibility of future economic injury, the national retailer argues that the data breach class action lawsuit plaintiffs do not have standing to pursue legal action against Target.

Target additionally claims that the data breach class action lawsuit fails to fully allege that consumers face potential economic risk in the future from the stolen personal information obtained during the Target data breach. In the wake of Target data breach, the retailer offered to provide a year of free credit monitoring to the affected credit and debit card consumers. While this does not fully eliminate the risk of identity theft and fraudulent charges, the retailer claims it reduces “the risk of future injuries,” meaning that the plaintiffs allegations of future economic injury is not high enough to necessitate pursuing legal claims against Target.

According to the retailer’s brief, Target states:

“Plaintiffs merely speculate that third parties will use their data at some uncertain future point and that they will be subject to (unreimbursed) unauthorized charges. Plaintiffs’ argument that the hackers have their data and intend to misuse it does nothing to nudge their allegations to certainty. That more than half of the 112 named plaintiffs do not allege any unauthorized charges (much less unreimbursed charges) many months after the intrusion occurred and others state that their debit or credit cards have been canceled (and thus could not be misused) shows otherwise.”

Earlier this year in April, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (or JPML) consolidated 33 Target data breach class action lawsuits housed in 18 different district courts into one data breach multidistrict litigation against Target. According to various outside reports, the Target data breach may be one of the largest data breach to ever occur in U.S. history. In addition to individual consumer allegations of injury and damage, banks have also lodged separate data breach claims against Target that have also been consolidated into this MDL.

The Target data breach class action lawsuit is set to go to trial in April 2016.

The consumer plaintiffs are represented by Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP, Milberg LLP, Girard Gibbs LLP, Nichols Kaster PLLP and Heins Mills & Olson PLC.

The Target Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit 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.