Contributing to the dismissal was the fact the suit was filed by financial institutions rather than consumers.
University of Illinois Employees Credit Union and Southpointe Credit Union had joined with the Community Bank of Trenton and First Federal Savings Bank of Champaign Urbana in a lawsuit filed in September against Schnuck Markets that alleged the civil provisions of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), contractual breaches, and other torts when it fell victim to a data breach.
But Legal Newsline is reporting the District Court for the Southern District of Illinois has tossed all 13 counts in the data breach case, saying the plaintiffs were too general in their allegations.
The financial institutions had sued arguing the breach had led to financial lawsuits. Legal Newsline reported Judge Michael Reagan dismissed the suit, because the plaintiffs failed to particularize their arguments to the facts of the case.
Between December 2012 and March 2013, Schnuck’s grocery became a victim of a major data breach in which consumers’ personal information was exposed. As has been the case in other breaches, the credit unions and banks said they incurred costs as a result of working to protect members and customers.
But the court ruled in its dismissal that for plaintiffs to avoid dismissal for failure to state a claim, the complaint must contain a short and plain statement of the claim adequate to demonstrate it is entitled to relief. The court found the plaintiffs failed to satisfy this requirement, Legal Newsline reported.
“The case before the court presents an impressive 13 different theories of relief for the plaintiffs to recover against Schnuck's,” the judge wrote. “Many of the theories have been tested in other data breach litigation against major retailers across the country, such as Target, Jimmy Johns, Barnes and Noble, Home Depot, and Neiman Marcus, to name a few. However, there is a critical distinction between the present set of claims, and those presented in the aforementioned cases—the claims in the present case are being brought by the financial institutions as opposed to by the merchant's customers…the allegations of harms sustained are general.”
The court’s ruling further noted that the complaint contained unsubstantiated statements too broad to ascertain harm or entitlement to relief.