Paul Tassin  |  February 9, 2017

Category: Consumer News

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MARINA, CA/USA - DECEMBER 30, 2013: Exterior view of a Target retail store. Target Corporation is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States.A federal appeals court has sided with objectors to the Target data breach class action settlement, sending the $10 million settlement back to the district court for revisions.

A three-judge panel of the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion earlier this month, instructing the district court to revisit its grant of Class certification and apply a more thorough legal analysis.

The appeals court also required the district court to reduce the bond amount intended to cover the costs of the appeal.

Class Members Leif Olson and Jim Sciaroni brought objections to the Target data breach class action settlement, challenging the grant of Class certification and the approval of the settlement.

Olson says the plaintiff Class, as certified by the district court, contains an intra-class conflict between Class Members who incurred costs or expenses as a result of the data breach and those who did not incur such losses.

Olson himself incurred no losses and therefore would not be eligible for compensation under the terms of the settlement. However, the settlement would still require him to release Target from any future claims he might have related to the Target data breach – including future harm that hasn’t yet occurred.

Olson argues that Class Members like himself who have not incurred losses should be separated into a “zero-recovery subclass” with its own independent representation. He points out that none of the named plaintiffs would fall within this subclass.

Also on appeal was the district court’s imposition of a $49,156 bond to cover the costs of the appeal. Olson and Sciaroni objected to the bond, most of which was set to cover not the costs of appeal but the financial harm the Class would allegedly suffer due to delay caused by appeal.

The appeals court reversed the imposition of the bond and instructed the district court to limit the bond amount to “only those costs that Appellees will recover should they succeed in any issues remaining on appeal following the district court’s reconsideration of class certification.”

The appeals court did not address Sciaroni’s challenge to the settlement, since that challenge is effectively mooted by the court’s decision on the issue of Class certification.

Parties to the litigation announced a $10 million Target data breach class action settlement in 2015. The settlement agreement earned the district court’s preliminary approval in March of that year. But rather than bringing an end to the litigation, the settlement marked the beginning of a new round of disputes over the settlement agreement itself.

The Eighth Circuit rejected an initial round of objections to the settlement in early 2016. Target successfully pointed out that one of the objectors was not even a Class Member and therefore had no standing to object to the settlement.

Olson is represented by attorneys Monica L. Davies of Jermusek & Davies LLC and Melissa A. Holyoak of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Sciaroni is represented by attorney Robert Black.

Other plaintiffs’ counsel includes attorneys from Heins Mills & Olson PLC, Nichols Kaster PLLP, Morgan & Morgan Complex Litigation Group PA, Girard Gibbs LLP, Milberg LLP, Chestnut Cambronne PA and Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP, among others.

The consolidated Target Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit Appeal is In re: Target Corporation Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, Case Nos. 15-3909, 15-3912, 16-1203, 16-1245, and 16-1408, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

UPDATE: 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!

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One thought on Target Data Breach Settlement Sent Back to District Court for Revisions

  1. JoAnne Kustenmacher says:

    I shopped at target before the breach. Please add me

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