Carhartt class action lawsuit overview:
- Who: Plaintiff Cole Sebastian is suing Carhartt Inc.
- Why: Sebastian claims Carhartt failed to properly secure and safeguard the personally identifiable information (PII) of nearly 13 million individuals.
- Where: The Carhartt class action lawsuit was filed in Michigan federal court.
A new class action lawsuit accuses Carhartt of failing to properly secure and safeguard the personally identifiable information of nearly 13 million individuals.
Plaintiff Cole Sebastian filed the class action complaint on Sept. 11 in Michigan federal court, alleging violations of state and federal consumer laws.
Carhartt is a privately held, family-owned clothing company headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan. According to the class action lawsuit, it operates 71 stores in the United States alone and also sells its products directly to consumers through its e-commerce platform and indirectly through a network of third-party retailers.
The class action lawsuit claims that the ShinyHunters hacking group publicly disclosed on or around Aug. 13 that it had compromised Carhartt’s internal data systems and published approximately 50 gigabytes of data obtained from Carhartt.
Subsequent analysis determined that the published data contained the PII of approximately 12.9 million individuals, the Carhartt class action lawsuit says.
Class action: Carhartt failed to properly encrypt data
The data breach lawsuit alleges that Carhartt disregarded the rights of the plaintiff and class members by failing to implement adequate and reasonable measures to safeguard their PII.
The company allegedly neglected to take available steps to prevent unauthorized data disclosure and failed to follow required protocols, policies and procedures for encrypting data, even for internal use.
As a result, the PII of the plaintiff and class members was accessed and compromised. The class action lawsuit further claims that the malicious party likely intends to profit from the breach by defrauding the plaintiff and class members in the future.
The plaintiff and class members have a continuing interest in ensuring that their information is and remains safe, and they are thus entitled to injunctive and other equitable relief, the Carhartt class action says.
The class action lawsuit looks to represent anyone whose PII was maintained by Carhartt and was compromised in the Carhartt data breach.
Sebastian is suing for negligence, breach of implied contract and unjust enrichment and seeks certification of the Carhartt class action, damages, fees, costs and a jury trial.
Meanwhile, home security and smart automation provider ADT is also facing a lawsuit after an alleged ShinyHunters attack stole more than 10 million customer records.
Were you affected by this Carhartt data breach? Let us know in the comments.
The plaintiff is represented by David H. Fink and Nathan J. Fink of Fink Bressack PLLC and Kenneth J. Grunfeld of Kopelowitz Ostrow P.A.
The Carhartt class action lawsuit is Sebastian v. Carhartt Inc., Case No. 2:26-cv-13464-LJM-APP, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
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