Second Version of $1.6M Neiman Marcus Settlement Approved

A $1.6 million Neiman Marcus data breach class action settlement has been initially approved after rejecting a previous version.

The approval was made by U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman who determined that the current version of the settlement deal provided better relief to certain Class Members than the previous settlement.

The current settlement amount is $1.6 million, and will go to customers affected by a 2013 data breach. $1.2 million will go to a settlement fund, and $400,000 will go to funding the administration of the settlement. 

The first version of the settlement deal was announced in March 2017, but was rejected by Judge Coleman because it did not provide monetary benefits to a subclass of customers who made purchases from Neiman Marcus after the malware that caused the data breach was active. In contrast, Judge Coleman determined that the current version of the settlement deal was fair and appropriate. 

The current settlement will provide relief of up to $25 for customers who made purchases from Neiman Marcus after the malware was active. Customers who made purchases while the malware was active will receive more — up to $100. This amount did not change from the first deal to the second one.

If there is not enough money to cover each claim, the claims will be fulfilled proportionally.

Customers had filed the Neiman Marcus data breach class action lawsuit against Neiman Marcus in 2014, saying that the company did not do enough to protect customers from the breach. Allegedly, the breach exposed customers to financial injury, fraud, and possible identity theft. 

Around 370,385 credit or debit cards were used to make purchases from Neiman Marcus during the time that the malware was active, say the consumers. Allegedly, around 9,200 of these cards were used to commit fraud. 

In addition to one settlement denial, the Neiman Marcus class action lawsuit survived a dismissal of claims. The initial dismissal was made in September 2014 by U.S. District Judge James Zagel. Judge Zagel determined that the customers who were not the victims of fraud could not claim that they were injured, and therefore, their data breach class action lawsuit was invalid. 

However, their Neiman Marcus data breach class action lawsuit was then approved, after the customers fought back against the dismissal by saying that customers who had not suffered fraud were indeed injured, because they had to incur costs to prevent fraud and mitigate the risks of the data breach. 

A final approval hearing for the $1.6 million data breach has been set for February 2019.

Have you suffered injury from a data breach? Share your experience with us.

The Neiman Marcus customers are represented by Tina Wolfson and Theodore Maya of Ahdoot & Wolfson PC; John A. Yanchunis of Morgan & Morgan; and Joseph Siprut and Melanie Nelson of Siprut PC.

The Neiman Marcus Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit is Remijas, et al. v. The Neiman Marcus Group LLC, Case No. 1:14-cv-01735, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. 

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