In a recent New York Law Journal article, HSE Partner F. Paul Greene, chair of the firm’s Privacy and Data Security Practice Group, discussed the escalating litigation risks healthcare companies face in the wake of patient data breaches.
The article examines two recent surges of federal class action lawsuits against Abbott Laboratories and AdaptHealth, both filed within days of the underlying breaches becoming public, and situates them within a broader wave of similar claims targeting the healthcare sector. Greene explained that companies are locked in an “arms race” with increasingly sophisticated hackers, and that plaintiffs’ firms are quick to step in after a breach, often before the facts are clear. Observing that “the tempo of data breach litigation has accelerated massively,” he noted that whereas litigation once followed only the largest breaches, nearly any reportable breach now carries the risk of class-action litigation. Greene also cautioned that the cost of defending such litigation often far exceeds the cost of responding to the breach itself.