By Stephen Marcantel
The Advocate
BATON ROUGE, La. — Lawyers representing Acadian Ambulance want a federal judge to dismiss a class action lawsuit filed against the company, claiming victims haven’t proved they were harmed by a data breach.
The lawsuit, which was consolidated from 10 other class actions, claims that the July 2024 data breach of the company led to sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, of 2.9 million people being leaked onto the dark web.
Federal Magistrate Judge Carol Whitehurst said during a Wednesday hearing she would rule on the request at a later date.
Attorneys first filed to dismiss the case in late January, according to online records.
Acadian Ambulance’s main thrust is that data breach victims have given no proof that they were actually harmed by the leak, claiming that zero damages multiplied across an alleged class of 2.9 million is still zero dollars’ and that plaintiffs “cut-and-pasted their alleged injuries from recent class actions.
Attorneys of the plaintiffs stood by their victims’ claims. They added that they only needed to show that a criminal group was involved in the leak and that personal information like SSNs were stolen, giving victims a sense of immanent harm.
The company, which operates air and ground ambulance services in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Tennessee, issued a news release in June announcing it had been the victim of a cyberattack recently.
Daixin, a hacker group, in July stole personal information of potentially million of patients. The lawsuit claims that 2.9 million people were affected but while Acadian Ambulance said the number of victims was much smaller. The company also said that private employee data, including SSNs, were not compromised.
The hacker group, holding the data ransom, asked for $7 million for its release back to the company. Acadian Ambulance refused to pay.
The lawsuit alleges Acadian Ambulance failed to properly secure plaintiffs’ and class action members’ personally identifiable information and personal health information despite warnings in recent years of cyber security threats particularly aimed at medical institutions and patient information.
The breach puts customers and employees at current and ongoing risk of fraud and identity theft, the lawsuit claims. Plaintiffs’ attorneys allege the victims have spent considerable time and money trying to mitigate the effects of the breach, such as closing out accounts and monitoring financial data almost constantly.
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