Class Certification Lifted in Hospital Patient Data Breach Case

A class certification order in a data breach case against a West Virginia hospital has been lifted because one named plaintiff lacked standing, and the other failed to show that his claim was typical of the proposed class, the state’s top court said.

Deborah Welch, who represented more than 7,000 people whose records were accessed by a hospital employee, allegedly as part of an identity theft scheme, lacked standing to sue for breach of a duty of confidentiality or invasion of privacy because the employee’s job included looking at patient records, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals said.

The ...