Judicial Panel Denies Geico Multidistrict Merger for Data Breach Class Actions

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Geico Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit Overview:

• Why: The panel ruled that three districts and five cases are not enough to merit centralization of the litigation filed by Geico customers after a data breach reported earlier this year. 
• Who: The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation denied Geico’s class action centralization attempt.
• Where: The class action lawsuits were filed in California, New York, and Maryland federal courts.

The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) rejected Geico’s attempt to centralize five class action lawsuits all regarding the same data breach at the insurance company. 

The JPML ruled centralization as unnecessary since there were only five cases, three districts, and no other related matters brought before the court. The panel also noted that the burden of demonstrating that centralization is appropriate fell to Geico, which it failed to meet. 

Geico first moved for centralization in New York in July as an attempt to reduce costs and prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings. 

Geico Data Breach Class Action Lawsuits

This decision comes after the plaintiffs of one of the class action lawsuits from California opposed centralization. These plaintiffs, Mark Edward Vennerholm and Reanna Ann Vennerholm, are pursuing a state-specific claim which allows them to assert damages against Geico if they can show they provided the company written notice of its violations and that the insurer failed to rectify the violation within 30 days of the notice.

The five class action lawsuits follow a data breach of Geico’s online sales system between January and March 2021. In April, Geico announced the data breach and that it had affected about 150,000 Geico customers, warning that drivers license information had been exposed. 

Were you affected by the 2021 Geico data breach? What do you think about this attempt to centralize the class action lawsuits? Let us know in the comments below!

The now rejected Geico Data Breach MDL is In re: Geico Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, Case No. 3013, in the US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.

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