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An approved $1.38 billion settlement between Equifax and consumers affected by a giant 2017 data breach is being held up in the Eleventh Circuit appeals court, after objectors said that the trial court failed to publicize the draft approval order.
In January 2020, U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. issued a 122-page opinion approving the settlement, which would bind 147 million consumers, saying that the monetary and injunctive benefits in the settlement were likely to exceed what Class members would get at trial, reports Law360.
In a fairness hearing, Thrash requested that class counsel draft a proposed written order, however that order was never published despite pressure from class counsel.
Now, multiple objectors are questioning whether the district court exercised independent jurisprudence and are calling on the Eleventh Circuit to vacate the settlement approval and reassign it to another district court judge, reports Law360.
Eric Isaacson, counsel for objector John W. Davis, said that Judge Thrash violated First Amendment and common law rights, as well as judicial ethics rules, in his communication with class counsel.
Isaacson said that Judge Thrash must have adopted class counsel’s draft verbatim, adding that was problematic as the final order included things that were not mentioned as a basis of the decision at the fairness hearing, reports Law360.
“On the record that we’ve currently got, with the assumption that it’s verbatim, we have to assume that the judge did not exercise independent judgment,” he said.
Another objector, Theodore Frank, said that the judge’s ruling was insufficient on legal grounds, adding previous rulings meant that the district court must provide the appeals court with a basis for assessing the exercise of its discretion.
However, Equifax attorney David L. Balser of King & Spalding LLP said that some of the objectors had engaged in extortion in the past to gain personal benefits in exchange for withdrawing their objections, reports Law360.
“There are 147.5 million people in the class, fewer than 300 objectors, and the only objectors who are left are all professional objectors,” Balser said.
“The arguments that are raised by the objectors here are either factually mistaken or predicated on extending the law in ways the court has repeatedly rejected.”
He added that the court should proceed cautiously, and “it should not disrupt all of the work that was done to achieve this historical agreement.”
Class counsel Kenneth Canfield, of Doffermyre Shields Canfield & Knowles LLC, said that the main issue the objectors had did not affect the Class, and instead hinged on the allegations of serial objecting.
“They only complain about his findings regarding them, and it was totally appropriate for the court to make those findings,” Canfield added.
Canfield told Law360 that even if the district court adopted the draft approval verbatim, previous rulings dictated that a ghostwritten order could only be reversed if the process was unfair and the order was unsupported by the record.
He added that the process had been fair and there was nothing extraordinary about the approval being missed from the docket.
The settlement comes after Equifax suffered the largest data breach of personal and financial information in American history in 2017. The breach involved almost half of the country’s population. In November 2017, consumers filed a class action lawsuit against Equifax, claiming that the credit bureau failed to protect their information.
Equifax reached a settlement with the consumers to resolve claims, but does not admit any wrongdoing by settling the case against them. There are several benefits available under the settlement. Consumers can choose between free credit monitoring services or a $125 cash payment. Additionally, the settlement would provide up to $20,000 in expense reimbursement and at least seven years of free identity restoration services.
Were you affected by the Equifax data breach? Let us know in the comments!
The Class is represented by Amy Keller of DiCello Levitt Gutzler LLC, Kenneth Canfield of Doffermyre Shields Canfield & Knowles LLC and Norman Siegel of Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP.
Equifax is represented in the multidistrict litigation by David L. Balser, Phyllis B. Sumner and Stewart Haskins of King & Spalding LLP.
Objector Shiyang Huang is representing himself.
Objectors Frank, David R. Watkins are represented by Theodore H. Frank of the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute’s Center for Class Action Fairness.
Objector George Willard Cochran Jr. is representing himself.
Objector Mikell West is represented by Robert William Clore of Bandas Law Firm PC.
Objector Davis is represented by Eric Alan Isaacson of the Law Offices of Eric Alan Isaacson.
The Equifax Data Breach Lawsuit is Huang et al. v. Spector et al., Case No. 20-10249, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
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38 thoughts on$1B Equifax Data Breach Settlement Stalled at 11th Circuit Appeals Court
It’s funny because I see I wrote here in February and here it is April and the initial period is now closed and this is even proves I have been trying and I shouldn’t have to “try” this hard for something that negatively impacted you. I forgot I even wrote here actually until I just saw that. They don’t even understand credit reporting and hard pulls / soft and how if for example someone opened an account under your name and your debt to income ratio is so important how that alone affects a person terrible to not get approved for huge important life changing things such as a car loan or house. Not sure how a settlement administrator can look at what people submit and make a determination if they don’t understand even basics of what these things mean. It is also not acceptable to out of nowhere get emails a few months before the deadline stating nothing was submitted back when I filed a claim years ago. Like I remember? My gosh this started in 2017 and these deadlines and lack of clear detail is concerning. Can’t wait to see what they say about my documents as I can just see them saying sorry we didn’t get when I have proof and I guess they lie. Maybe they are rated a top settlement admin company but they are horrific and so rude and so unprofessional. And so busy and want to rush you off the phone and tell me they created tickets and I would hear back which I never did. So I have a huge issue because of a breach that affected me and then have to deal with a place that should not handle this way ever.
I was severely affected however after filing claims and following the instructions and uploading over 100 documents they won’t (settlement administrator) assist in helping correct what they say could be technical issues and I emailed the CEO of the class action settlement administrator and she had someone call me Friday 4/15 and it was due 4/18 (yesterday) I told her I have called them and emailed them over 20 times in 6 months being proactive for several reasons and one being the date between initial and extended doesn’t make sense as I may have been working on trying to fix things which I was in December 2019 and my emails back and forth between the nightmare of trying to get my issues resolved go in to the dates for the “entended” they don’t get what I’m saying and they never replied to my emails where they even send a confirmation back saying received and we will contact you. So Friday and then a weekend last minute because I did that I get a call finally and she told me if I’m only able to upload 10 documents at a time which is true then that’s why they offer you to mail your things. Offer? I said I will pay more then any of this to make copies of Approx 300 pages and then get it postmarked on the 18th and pay to track and overnight $90 isn’t acceptable. My issue with the data breach affected way more then 20 hours it’s awful work I’ve done for 2 years as things have come up but this settlement administrator is absolutely rude and no follow up and horrible customer service. They are now making it so I probably won’t even qualify because they have the worst wording in directions and specifically told me to click on “cure” and then next person said click on upload so I could add more documents and then they say they don’t show them and I have screen shots showing “success” and all my documents uploaded. This is a mess which is sad because the breach itself is horrible if it affected you and it didn’t affect close to everyone but then this added so much more work then I feel like I have done to fix my credit and life.
I first had to go to their website to confirm if I was affected before I could signup and their website confirmed I was affected by this breach. Yesterday, I get an email with my claim number, that says I was not part of this class and says I need to prove I was part of the data breach before I can be included. Their website said I was affected, but not they say I am not, and need to prove I was notified by them that I was affected. I never received any official notice except for entering my data to their website and they told me I was affected. Anyone know what is going on. Sounds like now they have to pay out, they are trying to reduce the claimants because they do not have enough money to pay all those claims.
Yes! And have worked on fixing since then & to this day and I have several emails I have sent and all my disputes and so much documentation. They just sent me an email to sign up for free credit monitoring and I requested the $ as with the last breach it did nothing for me but send me emails telling me all the issues found which stressed me out more. I wrote back I didn’t want one thing to do with their free credit monitoring and have spent so much time and money. They don’t reply.
Class actions, by design, work this way. They are specifically engineered to make money for the lawyers, not for you.
Just to let you know, the data has yet to appear on the dark web. It was stolen by the Chinese government. If you are not a key person at working for Boeing, or Lockeed, they do not even want your info.
Odds are your identity was stolen because someone used information you posted on social media. If you have facebook, classmates, twitter, or any of those services, then you opened yourself up to identity theft.
I have been affected for multiple years and still affected. Credit been froze for so long and so much I have been dealing with with these credit bureaus.
My credit was severely impacted by the Equifax breach, I’ve had credit cards opened in my name and service accounts opened, someone has to do something this is insane!
How about not blaming Equifax and accept that you posted your whole life on facebook and that his how your identity was stolen.
I was recently informed that I had identity theft occur on my unemployment insurance account. I have been unable to receive benefits, they got my SS number. The unemployment department informed me that several accounts have been breached because of the equifax security breach. Please add me, The thieves still have thousands of consumers information to use. Who’s next? This will go on for many more years.
My name is already in it-get it done courts. This was not the first data breach from Equifax that I was involved in. Never got anything besides one letter from them.