Final approval for a $1.85 million settlement of a class action data breach lawsuit against East River Medical Imaging is due on October 22, 2024. Individuals affected by the breach of this New York radiology group can submit a claim until October 22, 2024, 2:30 PM EDT.
East River Medical Imaging detected a security breach on September 20, 2023. A hacker accessed its systems between August 31, 2023 and September 20, 2023, and copied files from its system. The data of patients and employees were compromised, including names, contact details, insurance data, financial account details, examination and/or procedure details, referring doctor names, imaging data results, Social Security numbers, and driver’s license numbers. To comply with the HIPAA breach notification rule, East River Medical Imaging sent notification letters to the impacted people beginning November 22, 2023. On November 22, 2024, the breach report was submitted to the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights indicating that 605,809 individuals were affected.
On December 5, 2023, the law agency Shub & Johns (S&J) submitted the first lawsuit associated with the data breach in the Supreme Court of New York for New York County. Because other lawsuits associated with the same data breach were submitted, the lawsuits were consolidated into one case Guarnaschelli et al. v. East River Medical Imaging on March 26, 2024. The plaintiffs are represented by Benjamin F. Johns of P.C. S&J and Jean Martin of Morgan & Morgan.
The lawsuit claimed that East River Medical Imaging did not apply reasonable and proper security measures to safeguard patient data. The plaintiffs contended that the data breach could have been avoided if security measures were enforced. In April 2024, Johns and Martin submitted a motion for preliminary approval of a class action settlement. The court gave preliminary approval of the settlement on April 16, 2024. Final approval is due to be released on October 22, 2024. East River Medical Imaging did not admit any wrongdoing.
Based on the conditions of the settlement, class members may file a claim of up to $7,500 for documented losses brought on by the data breach, such as professional services, bank costs, communication costs, credit costs, and other losses, i.e. identity theft and scams. Claimants for documented losses will receive cash payments, which will be calculated pro rata from the settlement fund after deducting attorneys’ service fees, legal costs, and claims. Regardless of whether a claim is filed, all class members will be eligible to get free three-bureau credit monitoring and identity theft services for one year. Claims may be filed using the settlement website.
Submitting an objection or exclusion from the settlement is no longer possible. The last day to submit a claim is getting close. As per Johns, approximately 20,000 people impacted by the data breach have filed a claim to get paid their share of the settlement.