Judge Won’t Toss Claims in Sony Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit

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On June 16, a California federal judge refused to dismiss a Sony data breach class action lawsuit brought against Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. by nine former employees. This Sony class action lawsuit alleges a massive data breach, supposedly carried out by hackers from North Korean for the portrayal of Kim Jong Un in Sony’s “The Interview,” was caused by Sony’s negligence.

According to U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner, plaintiff Michael Corona and the other plaintiffs involved in this Sony data breach litigation have fully supported their claims of negligence in that the plaintiffs allege they have to spend their own money in order to protect sensitive and personal information after the 2014 data breach. The judge also rejected Sony’s argument that these former employees did not sufficiently demonstrate that they had suffered injury.

Since California courts have not yet dealt with the problem of whether or not prophylactic measures like credit monitoring and fraud protection can constitute a negligence claim because of the costs associated with these types of protective measures.

Because Judge Klausner did not have an analogous case to guide his decision in this Sony data breach class action lawsuit, he based his ruling off negligence claims brought forth in toxic chemical exposure lawsuits and the subsequent decisions by other judges. This led to Judge Klausner’s decision to not dismiss the numerous data breach class action lawsuits filed against Sony. He ruled that identity protection was a necessity for those affected by the Sony data breach, especially considering the plaintiffs’ claims that they were notified of attempted identity theft and needed to take immediate action to protect themselves.

Another point of contention brought up by Sony in their motion to dismiss the data breach class action lawsuits is that the plaintiffs’ claims were barred by the economic loss doctrine; however, Judge Klausner was not convinced. He found that since the lead plaintiff and others involved in the Sony data breach litigation were required to provide their personal information to Sony in order to receive payment and benefits as employees, this falls under an exclusion of the economic loss doctrine.

At the end, Judge Klausner refused to dismiss the data breach class action lawsuits or the claims of negligence against Sony, though he did partially dismiss the plaintiffs’ claim that Sony breach its duty to notify their employees about the data breach in a timely manner. Other claims also tossed from this Sony data breach lawsuit also include state law violations for California, Virginia, and Colorado, as well as breach of implied contract.

This Sony data breach class action lawsuit was originally filed in December of last year by lead plaintiff Michael Corona and other former employees, seeking to represent themselves and 15,000 current and former Sony employees.

The plaintiffs are represented by Khesraw Karmand, Matthew J. Preusch, Lynn Lincoln Sarko, Gretchen Freeman Cappio, Cari Campen Laufenberg and Amy N.L. Hanson of Keller Rohrback LLP; Daniel C. Girard, Matthew B. George and Linh G. Vuong of Girard Gibbs LLP; and Michael W. Sobol, RoseMarie Maliekel and Nicholas Diamand of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP.

The Sony Data Breach Class Action Lawsuits are consolidated under Michael Corona, et. al v. Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Case No. 2:14-cv-09600, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

UPDATE: On Feb. 26, 2016, the Sony Pictures cyberattack class action lawsuit settlement is now open! Click here to file a Claim Form or visit http://www.cyberattacksettlement.com.

UPDATE 2: On Aug. 22, 2016, Top Class Actions readers who submitted “preventive measure” claims in the Sony data breach class action settlement started receiving checks worth as much as $475.17!