Data breach class action dismissed against SuperValu for lack of standing

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Last week, a Minnesota court ruled that a consolidated class action filed against SuperValu retail chain failed to assert any harm, finding that while SuperValu did suffer two data breaches, the class’s claims of possible future injuries were too speculative, and the class therefore lacked standing to sue. The data breaches occurred in 2014 at over 1,000 retail stores. The only ‘harm’ alleged by any of the class members was a single unauthorized credit card charge. However, the court said in its decision, with the frequency of credit card fraud, this one unauthorized charge is not fairly traceable to the SuperValu breaches. U.S. District Judge Ann D. Montgomery said, “This speculation prevents the court from finding an increased risk of fraud and identity theft is ‘certainly impending’ or that there is a ‘substantial risk’ the harm will occur.” The class attempted to argue that its case was similar to that of Target; however, the court concluded that cases like Target alleged factual evidence of actual data misuse to suggest that hackers were actually using customer data for fraudulent activities. Judge Montgomery said, “Here, the singular incident from one named plaintiff over the course of more than a year following the data breach is not sufficient to ‘nudge’ plaintiffs’ class claims of data misuse or imminent misuse ‘across the line from conceivable to plausible.”  The court also ruled that the class members could not inflict harm on themselves by paying for credit monitoring and other similar services –fear of future harm will still not satisfy the elements of standing. However, Judge Montgomery did rule ‘without prejudice’ which could leave room for the class to file an amended complaint.

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