Norman Siegel Named Lead in Equifax Data Breach Litigation
On February 12, 2018, Judge Thomas W. Thrash of the Northern District of Georgia named Stueve Siegel Hanson partner Norman Siegel as co-lead counsel on behalf of consumers in the litigation over the massive Equifax data breach.
The data breach impacted more than 145 million consumers, or nearly half the U.S. population. The stolen information includes names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, addresses and some driver's license numbers. Also included in the data breach were 209,000 U.S. credit card numbers, in addition to “certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers.”
Experts agree that the data breach has the potential to be one of the most damaging in history. Pamela Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a nonprofit research group, said that: “This is about as bad as it gets. If you have a credit report, chances are you may be in this breach. The chances are much better than 50 percent.” Avivah Litan, a fraud analyst at Gartner, stated that: “On a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of risk to consumers, this is a 10.”
The lawsuit alleges that Equifax was grossly negligent in maintaining and securing the personal information of millions of consumers, and asserts claims for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, state consumer protection statutes, negligence, unjust enrichment, and breach of contract, among others.
Stueve Siegel Hanson is an industry-leader in data breach and cyber-security litigation. Stueve Siegel Hanson attorneys have prosecuted cases involving the largest data breaches in U.S. history, securing millions of dollars for affected consumers. For more information about our data breach practice, click here.
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