AT&T is one of the oldest and largest companies of its kind in the United States and has a storied history. Unfortunately, a massive data breach exposed the personal information of millions of Americans. This includes people who are not AT&T customers.
Are you one of them? If so, you could be facing a class action lawsuit.
AT&T Data Breach
Earlier this year, AT&T announced that it had suffered a major data breach.
“AT&T learned in April that customer data was illegally downloaded from our workspaces on a third-party cloud platform,” the company said. in a statement. “The compromised data includes files containing AT&T records of nearly all phone calls and text messages for AT&T mobile phone and mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) customers who use AT&T’s wireless network,” the company said in a statement. It is included.”
This means that even if you’re not an AT&T customer, you could be affected if you use AT&T’s network.
The breach also includes AT&T landline customers who used these mobile phone numbers between May 1, 2022 and October 31, 2022.
At issue in the lawsuit are allegations that the company failed in its duty to protect the confidential information of network users.
How to join the class action lawsuit against AT&T
In its simplest form, a class action lawsuit is when a group of people (plaintiffs) sue together as one group, or when one person sue on behalf of a group.
In this case, the plaintiffs are suing AT&T, alleging that AT&T’s handling of personally identifying information has increased the risk of fraud.
“Plaintiffs now face the possibility that malicious actors may use the information revealed in this data breach to blackmail them, and they are suffering emotional distress as a result.” AT&T Class Action Lawsuit claims.
How does a class action lawsuit work?
Class action law has evolved over the past several decades. However, there are specific rules binding on class actions known as Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The Legal Information Institute indicates that courts must find out in order to authorize a class action lawsuit:
- Due to the large number of class members, it is not practical to participate in the action
- Collective participants’ claims share a common question of law or fact
- The claims or defenses of proposed class representatives are typical of the claims or defenses of the remaining members of the class;
- The proposed class representative will adequately protect the interests of the class as a whole.
In other words, for a judgment to have approximately the same impact on all class participants, all plaintiffs must have sufficiently similar claims for damages. So the question before the court is whether all of these plaintiffs actually suffered similar damages from the defendants.
How long does a class action lawsuit take?
Again, the answer is “it depends.”
In some cases, the answer is 10 minutes. A defendant can end a lawsuit before it begins by settling with the plaintiff. Usually this means payment. According to Top Class Action, Settlements are usually It can take up to 9 months or a year.
But if a class action lawsuit goes to trial, the timeline is several years, typically two to three years, according to the Cochrane office.
