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Responding to news that on Tuesday, May 17, U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash Jr. denied Home Depot's motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit brought by financial institutions, including your League, regarding the retail giant's 2014 data breach. In May 2015, your League's Board of Directors voted to join in the lawsuit brought against Home Depot as a result of breach which compromised thousands of Maine credit union members' cards and a total of 56 million nationwide. John Murphy, President of the Maine CU League, said the judge's decision to let the lawsuit continue is "a victory in our long pursuit of holding those responsible for data breaches accountable."
The Tuesday decision held that financial institution plaintiffs had stated valid claims for negligence and various state consumer deceptive trade practices by Home Depot that compromised 56 million credit and debit cards.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta division also denied the motion to dismiss associational plaintiffs, including those of the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), the Maine CU League and a number of other state credit union leagues, finding that they had standing to seek injunctive relief against Home Depot.
"CUNA and the state leagues continue to advocate on Capitol Hill for higher data protection standards for all merchants," said CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle in a statement sent to the League. "This is a victory for credit unions as we continue to pursue every possible avenue to get merchants to raise their data security standards to protect consumers and card-issuing credit unions."