Memorial Health Data Breach Lawsuit Filed By The Lyon Firm

The Lyon Firm has filed a class action data breach lawsuit on behalf of Memorial Health (Marietta Area Health Care) victims in Ohio and nationwide. Our data privacy attorneys are actively involved in a wide variety of data theft cases, and offer free and confidential consultations. Contact us to seek justice and compensation.

In August 2021, a cyberattack and data breach was detected by Memorial Health System, impacted the personal information of 216,478 individuals.

A Memorial Health data breach investigation confirmed the attackers gained access to company servers in July 2021, and potentially accessed or acquired information from its systems.

The lawsuit was filed by Joe Lyon in the U./S. District Court of the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division against Marietta Area Health Care Inc. dba Memorial Health System on behalf of plaintiff Kathleen Tucker and a class of individuals affected by the data breach.

The lawsuit alleges that class members’ had their personal information compromised, and “suffered ascertainable losses in the form of the loss of the benefit of their bargain, out-of-pocket expenses and the value of their time reasonably incurred to remedy or mitigate the effects of the attack.”

The lawsuit alleges Memorial Health System was negligent for not properly and safely maintaining the private information of patients, and storing data on systems that were vulnerable to cyberattacks. The lawsuit alleges the risk of cyberattacks was known, but the necessary steps to secure private information were not taken.

As in most other data breach cases, the Memorial Health class members may now be exposed to a heightened risk of fraud and identity theft.

The lawsuit seeks a jury trial and compensatory damages, punitive damages, reimbursement of out-of-pocket costs, and injunctive relief, which should include improvements to Memorial Health System’s data security systems, future annual audits, and providing adequate credit monitoring services to individuals affected by the breach.

This lawsuit, filed by attorney Joseph M. Lyon of The Lyon Firm, is one of hundreds of healthcare data breach cases pending across the country.

How Do Data Breaches Occur?

A data breach typically occurs in malware, phishing attacks or ransomware attacks when a hacker or cybercriminal gains access to sensitive personal information that has been collected and stored on a company’s servers. Hackers often target organizations with weak or outdated security practices.

Once the information is obtained, it can be sold to third parties to use in identity theft or other fraudulent data theft schemes. Victims of data breaches are at an increased risk of identity theft and financial losses.

If you have received a letter from Memorial Health about the recent data breach, contact a class action privacy attorney.

Class Action Data Breach Lawsuits

Data Theft Lawyers believe companies who collect and store personal data have an ethical and legal duty to protect it to prevent data theft. Creating a proper network security system is expensive, however, and many medical labs attempt to bypass these necessary costs. If a hospital or medical facility fails to protect consumers’ and patients’ sensitive information, and a data breach occurs, they may be held liable.

The lawsuit alleges MHS’s “unlawful conduct” including:

• Properly monitoring data security systems for existing intrusions
• Ensuring that vendors with access to computer systems and data employ reasonable security procedures
• Training employees in the proper handling of emails containing PII and PHI and maintain adequate email security practices
• Implementing technical policies and procedures to allow electronic PHI access only to individuals or software programs granted access rights
• Implementing procedures to review records of information system activity regularly, such as audit logs, access reports and security incident tracking reports
• Protecting against reasonably anticipated threats or hazards to the security or integrity of electronic PHI

Online Security Negligence Leads to Data Breach Events

The Lyon Firm encourages all potentially affected individuals in the Memorial health security breach to act quickly and remain vigilant against potential identity theft and fraud by reviewing account statements, medical bills and credit reports. Contact a privacy attorney to review your data breach case.