After more than five years of litigation, on April 26, 2016, a three-judge Superior Court panel in Pennsylvania upheld the denial of a motion for certification of a class action against Epstein Becker Green clients Keystone Mercy and AmeriHealth Caritas Health Plans.
In December 2010, the plaintiff, on behalf of his daughter, filed a lawsuit against the two insurers, claiming that they violated state consumer protection laws by losing a flash drive containing the personal health information (PHI) of more than 283,000 individuals and by failing to live up to their promise to protect and safeguard these individuals’ PHI.
In denying the plaintiff’s class certification motion, the panel found that the trial court had “carefully considered the numerosity, typicality, adequacy of representation, and fair and efficient method of adjudication requirements for class certification under Rule 1702 [('Prerequisites to a Class Action')] and found the class action requirements were not met.” In addition, the panel agreed with the trial court’s ruling that the plaintiff could not properly represent potential class members because he was unable to conclusively link his daughter to the PHI contained on the lost flash drive. Also, the panel left in place the trial court’s finding that, as there was no there was no actual harm associated with the data breach, the plaintiff failed to fulfill the typicality requirements for a class action.
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