Ashley Madison Data Breach Class Action Lawsuits Grouped in Mo.

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Last week, several class action lawsuits filed over the Ashley Madison data breach were centralized into multidistrict litigation (MDL) in Missouri federal court.

Five proposed Ashley Madison class action lawsuits were filed against the website, advertised as a match-maker for adulterous affairs, after hackers allegedly posted anonymous users’ identities and financial information online. The companies that own the website, AshleyMadison.com, have 13 other lawsuits pending against them as well.

The Ashley Madison class action lawsuits alleged that Avid Life Media Inc. and Avid Dating Life Inc., the owners of the website, failed to adequately secure their personal and financial information, making them susceptible to the data breach.

The plaintiffs also claim that Avid marketed a “Full Delete Removal” service that did not, in fact, purge user account information from the Ashley Madison database. Certain plaintiffs also alleged that the website made use of artificial intelligence “bots” and other mechanisms to mimic fake users, mainly female users, on the Ashley Madison website in order to fraudulenty induce actual, predominantly male users to make purchases.

“This district is a geographically central and accessible forum for this nationwide litigation,” said one of the judges representing the judicial panel in the MDL on the issue of centralization. “The Eastern District of Missouri also is relatively convenient for defendants, which are located in Toronto, Canada,” the judge continued.

The defendants and plaintiffs from Northern Alabama and Missouri supported centralizing the multidistrict litigation in St. Louis. Plaintiffs from Illinois, California, and Texas argued for MDL to be centralized in their districts to no avail.

Additionally, a plaintiff in Maryland argued that his class action lawsuit was distinct from the cases arising from the breach because he had argued that “fembots” had fraudulently induced him and other men to spend more money on the site; however, the judicial panel pointed out that several of the consolidated cases contained the same claims for fraud.

“Contrary to plaintiff’s argument, this allegation is not unique — at least five other related actions assert similar, if not identical, consumer fraud claims on behalf of putative nationwide classes,” the panel wrote in the order transferring the Ashley Madison class action lawsuits to Missouri. “In any event, transfer … does not require a complete identity or even a majority of common factual issues as a prerequisite to transfer.”

“Additionally,” concluded the panel, “plaintiffs learned of this alleged fraudulent scheme through analysis of the data disclosed in the Ashley Madison data breach.”

The MDL panel also appointed the Honorable John A. Ross, who in their words is “an experienced transferee judge with the willingness and ability to efficiently manage this litigation, to preside over this matter.”

The plaintiffs in the various Ashley Madison lawsuits are represented by the Driscoll Firm PC, Dowd & Dowd PC, Whitfield Bryson & Mason LLP, Heninger Garrison Davis LLC, The Rosen Law Firm PA,Federman & Sherwood and Baddley & Mauro LLC, among others.

The Ashley Madison Data Breach MDL is In Re: Ashley Madison Customer Data Security Breach, Case No. 2669, before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.

UPDATE: On Apr. 6, 2016, a Missouri federal judge ruled that plaintiffs seeking to act as Class representatives in the Ashley Madison data breach class action lawsuit cannot use pseudonyms and must disclose their real names.

UPDATE 2: On Apr. 18, 2016, the makers of the Ashley Madison dating website, Avid Dating Life Inc., argued that the Class shouldnot be able to use private informationeven though it has been leaked to the press.

UPDATE 3: On June 24, 2016, in response to a recent federal court ruling, 18 plaintiffs who have filed suit against Ashley Madison over the highly-publicized data breach have amended their complaint to include their own names.

UPDATE 4: On Aug. 29, 2016, the companies behind the extramarital dating website Ashley Madison asked a federal judge to halt litigation over last summer’s data breach and refer the plaintiffs’claims to private arbitration.UPDATE 5: On July 14, 2017, Ashley Madison’s parent company agreed topay $11.2 million to settleclaims arising from a data breach that revealed personal information about those using the adultery dating website. UPDATE 6: The Ashley Madison data breach class action settlement is now open.

 Click here to file a claim. 

UPDATE 7: On Jan. 31, 2018, Top Class Actions viewers who filed a valid claim for the Ashley Madison data breach class action settlement started receiving checks worth as much as $2,915. Congratulations to everyone who got PAID!