New York Hospital Patients Lack Standing in Data Breach Row

Elizabethtown Community Hospital beat claims of inadequate data security protections after a federal judge in New York found that plaintiffs lacked standing.

The hospital, based in Elizabethtown, N.Y., disclosed a breach in 2018 that exposed 32,000 patients’ health information. Patient Ronald Jantzer sued ECH in July 2019 after receiving notice that an employee’s email was compromised, according to court documents. Jantzer alleged that medical data and patient names, but not Social Security numbers, were improperly exposed to third parties.

Companies can often beat data breach claims when plaintiffs don’t show that sensitive data was exposed. Courts usually dismiss plaintiff data ...