Duane Morris Takeaway: Data breach litigation remained expansive in 2024 as plaintiffs filed more data breach class actions than in any other year and double the number filed in 2022. As the number of data breaches has accelerated, such events have provided the fuel for a surge of class actions. Despite the significant increase in filings, courts issued few (only four) class certification decisions in 2024, suggesting that many motions are in the pipeline or that, observing the difficulty that plaintiffs have faced in certifying such cases over the past two years, plaintiffs are electing to monetize their data breach claims prior to reaching that crucial juncture. So long as defendants continue to play ball on the settlement front, we are likely to see settlement payouts continue to lure plaintiffs to this space and fuel those filing numbers.
Watch the video below to learn more about this trend from Review co-editor Jennifer Riley:
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1. Filing Numbers Continue Their Upward Trajectory
The volume of data breach class actions continued to proliferate in 2024. Data breach has emerged as one of the fastest growing areas of class action litigation. After every major (and not-so-major) report of a data breach, companies now can expect the resulting negative publicity to prompt one or more class action lawsuits, saddling companies with the significant costs of responding to the data breach as well as the significant costs of dealing with high-stakes class action lawsuits, often on multiple fronts.
Companies that are unfortunate enough to fall victim to data breaches in 2024 faced class actions at an increasing rate. In 2024, we tallied 1,488 class action filings in the data breach area, compared with 1,320 in 2023, and 604 in 2022.
As the graphic depicts, the growth of filings in the data breach area has been extraordinary, from 108 class action filings in 2018 to 1,488 class action filings in 2024, an increase of more than 1,265% over six years.
Several factors likely contributed to this continued surge in data breach class actions in 2024. First, data breaches have continued to increase at a rate that roughly tracks the shape of the curve depicted above. Second, whereas data breach actions pursued a decade ago faced little prospect of success, recent court decisions have provided a roadmap for plaintiffs to attempt to show standing and successfully plead duty, causation, and damages, thereby providing additional momentum for the plaintiffs' class...
