CTO Vacated in MOVEit MDL After Judge Remands 2 PBI Cases to Fla. Court

Conditional transfer order 23 (CTO-23) in In Re: Moveit Customer Data Security Breach Litigation (docket 3083) is vacated, said a clerk’s notice Monday before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, saying two actions versus Pension Benefit Information in the CTO were remanded to Florida state court.

U.S. District Judge Henry Lee Adams of the Middle District of Florida remanded the cases to the 4th Judicial Circuit in Duval County after plaintiffs in the two cases filed a notice of opposition last month to CTO-23. Plaintiffs Andrew Kantack (docket 3:23-cv-01406) and Sharon Oliver each sued Pension Benefit Information in negligence suits involving the MOVEit breach (see 2312200042).

Also on Monday in the MOVEit MDL, defendant Clearesult Consulting moved to dismiss Dauch v. Clearesult Consulting in a motion to vacate CTO-24. The motion follows Clearesult’s motion to dismiss the Dauch action on Nov. 21 in U.S. District Court for Western Texas and its Dec. 26 notice opposing CTO-24 (see 2312280041) before the JPML.

Jason Dauch’s case was one of three tagalong actions in CTO-24, transferred to U.S. District Court for Massachusetts in Boston and assigned to U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs. In the Sept. 29 breach of contract case in U.S. District Court for Western Texas in Austin (docket 1:23-cv-01182), Dauch sued the energy consulting company for failure to properly secure his personally identifiable information (PII) in the late May data breach at Progress Software, one of Clearesult’s IT vendors.

In its Monday motion to vacate, Clearesult said Dauch filed his notice of potential tagalong action within five hours after the parties completed briefing on the defendant’s motion to dismiss and submitted the motion to the Texas federal court for consideration. “When a pending dispositive motion is ‘fully submitted’ to a potential transferor judge,” the panel “traditionally vacates” a CTO and defers its decision until the transferor judge has rendered its decision, the filing said.

Dauch knew about the MOVEit MDL no later than Dec. 4, but he “deliberately chose to delay filing” his notice of potential tagalong action “until after he considered, and the parties fully briefed,” Clearesult’s motion to dismiss, said Clearesult’s motion. Dauch’s negligence claims should be dismissed because he lacks standing under Rule 12(b)(1) and fails to state a viable claim for relief under Rule 12(b)(6), the motion said.

Additionally Monday, seven more actions were transferred to the MDL and assigned to Burroughs in CTO-25: Paweski v. Alogent Holdings (docket 1:23-cv-05705), Hall v. Community Trust Bank (docket 7:23-cv-00079), George et al v. Progress Software Corp. (8:23-cv-00568), Dudurkaewa v. MidFirst Bank (docket 5:23-cv-00817), Rubenstein v. Midland Financial Co. (docket 5:23-cv-00954), Linman v. Midland Financial Co. (docket 5:23-cv-00955) and Winstanley v. Progress Software (docket 2:23-cv-01729).

The panel transferred five civil actions to the Massachusetts federal court on Oct. 4 for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings, said the CTO. Since that time, 180 additional actions have been transferred to the court and assigned to Burroughs, it said.