Summary:
A lawsuit filed on February 9, 2015 against Anthem, Inc. d/b/a Anthem Health, Inc. (“Anthem”), The Anthem Companies, Inc., The Anthem Companies of California, Inc., and Anthem Blue Cross Life and Health Insurance Company. Anthem, an Indiana based health care company, is one of the largest for-profit health care companies in the United States. The lawsuit alleges that Anthem has failed to properly safeguard valuable Personally Identifiable Information and Personal Health Information belonging to its consumers, which allowed for their servers to be criminally hacked and potentially more than 37.5 million records to be stolen. The affected class includes all persons who have purchased health insurance from Anthem, Inc., The Anthem Companies, Inc., The Anthem Companies of California, and Anthem Blue Cross Life and Health Insurance Company and whose personal and/or financial information was stolen as a result of the data breach announced on or about February 4, 2015.
Plaintiffs allege that Anthem misrepresented the safety and security of their data retention systems, which prevented Plaintiffs from fully understanding the serious risks they undertook by giving Anthem their personal information. Plaintiffs allege that this misrepresentation constitutes an unfair or deceptive act or practice in the conduct of trade or commerce on behalf of Anthem.
Plaintiffs allege that Anthem was negligent for failing to exercise reasonable care and for failing to have appropriate procedures in place to detect and prevent the dissemination of Plaintiffs’ private information. Plaintiffs claim that Anthem breached both their duty to exercise reasonable care in safeguarding and protecting such information from being compromised and their duty to timely disclose that Plaintiffs’ private information within its possession had been compromised.
Plaintiffs allege that they delivered and entrusted their private information to Anthem for the sole purpose of receiving health care services from Anthem, and during that time of bailment, Anthem owed Plaintiffs a duty to safeguard this information and retain security procedures and practices to protect such information. Plaintiffs claim that Anthem breached this duty. Plaintiffs further claim that, as a result of Anthem’s wrongful conduct, Anthem has interfered with Plaintiffs’ rights to possess and control their private information, to which they had a superior right of possession and control, thereby committing a conversion. Plaintiffs allege that, in converting Plaintiffs’ private information, Anthem acted with malice, oppression and in conscious disregard of Plaintiffs’ rights, entitling them to punitive damages on behalf of the class.
Anyone who has purchased health insurance from Anthem and its subsidiaries and has had their personal and/or financial information leaked may have a claim. Please contact the litigation attorneys at Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP, (212) 300-0375, to schedule a free consultation so that we can discuss your rights.
Contact Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP.
Anyone who has purchased health insurance from Anthem should contact Fitapelli & Schaffer, (212) 300-0375, or at www.fslawfirm.com, to see if you are eligible to join the case. You can also view the complaint here.