Plaintiff Moves to Transfer 12 Citrix Data Breach Cases to Pa. District Court

Enrique Munoz's class action is one of a dozen named in a motion before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) to transfer the cases in In Re: Citrix Data Security Breach Litigation to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings, said a Thursday filing (docket 1:23-cv-17096) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago.

Kenneth Hasson, plaintiff in Hasson v. Comcast Cable Communications (docket 2:23-cv-05039), moved the panel to transfer the 12 cases and any subsequently filed tagalong actions to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, saying centralization is appropriate because the related class actions filed in three separate federal district courts arise from the same October data breach “that impacted the personal information of millions of individuals," said his Jan. 4 motion filed Thursday in Illinois federal court. Four cases are in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida.

A vulnerability in a Citrix network device used by Comcast and other companies resulted in the October data breach that compromised the personally identifiable information (PII) of over 36 million Comcast customers, said the memorandum of law in support of Hasson’s motion. The related actions “seek redress on behalf of individuals whose PII was accessed and exfiltrated because of Comcast’s and Citrix’s alleged failure to reasonably and properly secure it,” it said.

The related actions represent overlapping nationwide classes and assert the same or similar claims, the motion said. Centralization for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings is also appropriate to prevent conflicting pretrial rulings while promoting efficient litigation of the actions stemming from the breach, it said. The Eastern District of Pennsylvania is the most “logical and well-equipped” district to address the claims in the related actions because it's the district where most of the related actions are filed, is readily accessible and is where a “substantial amount of discovery” is likely to reside since Comcast is based there, the motion said.

The actions “are all at their infancy,” having been recently filed, with no responsive motions filed, said the memorandum. “Therefore, now is an appropriate time for the Related Actions to be consolidated or coordinated.”

The other 10 actions are Prescott v. Comcast Corp. (docket 2:23-cv-05040), Hendrickson v. Comcast (docket 2:23-cv-05072), Wilson v. Comcast (docket 2:23-cv-05091), Nanez et al v. Comcast (docket 2:23-cv-05092), Keung v. Comcast (docket 2:23-cv-05110), Verdier v. Comcast et al (docket 2:23-cv-05137), Kirkpatrick v. Citrix Systems, Inc. (docket 0:23-cv-62409), Brown v. Comcast et al. (docket 0:23-cv-62392), Hammond et al. v. Citrix (docket 0:23-cv-62409) and Carey v. Citrix (0:24-cv-60008).

The Eastern District of Pennsylvania has “more favorable docket conditions” vs. the national average with 22 judgeships and 345 actions per judgeship, said the memorandum. It averages seven months from the time of filing to disposition vs. the national average of 8.7 months, it said. The district also has a “long history of successfully managing high-profile multidistrict litigation,” it said.