Separate AT&T Data Breach MDL May Be Established For Wireless Phone Records Leak

In mid-July, AT&T announced yet another massive data breach, this time involving the theft of around 110 million customers’ phone numbers, private call and text records, which could put them at risk of identity fraud and financial harm.

This came on the heals of another AT&T data breach announced earlier this year, which involved social security numbers and other personal identifying information of more than 70 million former customers, which was obtained in a leak years earlier and already being sold by hackers on the Dark Web.

Following the first leak, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) established consolidated pretrial proceedings for all AT&T data breach lawsuits filed over that security failure, centralizing claims brought throughout the federal court system before U.S. District Judge Ada Brown in the Northern District of Texas for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

Now, however, the JPML has been asked to establish a separate MDL for lawsuits over the AT&T wireless phone records leak, which involves a completely different security failure and may be centralized before a different judge in a different venue.

Plaintiffs Lori Young and Machelle Crawford filed a motion for transfer (PDF) with the JPML on July 23, indicating that four AT&T phone records data breach lawsuits have been filed in four different district courts, and that number is expected to rise in the coming weeks and months.

The motion calls for these lawsuits and any future claims over the AT&T wireless phone records leak to be consolidated in the Northern District of Georgia.

“Convenience for the parties, particularly as to the appearance of witnesses and the location of documents, will be enhanced in the Northern District of Georgia because AT&T Mobility, LLC has its principal place of business in Georgia. This is a compelling consideration,” the plaintiffs wrote. “Moreover, the cases were all recently filed, and no discovery or substantive proceedings have yet occurred in them. If they are permitted to proceed separately, much of the discovery will be the same in each case because of the many overlapping issues of fact and law, resulting in unnecessary costs to all parties and unnecessarily duplicative work by the assigned district judges.”

AT&T and other plaintiffs involved in the litigation have not yet filed a response, and it is likely some of those interested parties will oppose the creation of a separate MDL, arguing that there will be increased efficiency from consolidating lawsuits over both breaches before the same federal judge.

It is expected that the JPML will consider oral arguments over the motion during an upcoming hearing scheduled for September 26, 2024, in Nashville, Tennessee.