TMCnet News

Dismiss lawsuit over hacking of clients' personal data, Paytime Inc. asks federal judge [The Patriot-News, Harrisburg, Pa. :: ]
[August 29, 2014]

Dismiss lawsuit over hacking of clients' personal data, Paytime Inc. asks federal judge [The Patriot-News, Harrisburg, Pa. :: ]


(Patriot-News (Harrisburg, PA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Aug. 29--A Cumberland County-based payroll firm is asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit over a large-scale hacking attack on the company, or at least to prevent the complaint from becoming a class-action case.



A main argument Paytime Inc. is making to U.S. Middle District Judge John E. Jones III is that the four midstate residents who filed the complaint in June have no grounds to sue because -- at least to date -- they haven't suffered any actual harm because of the security breach.

Personal information, including Social Security and bank account numbers, for more than 200,000 Paytime clients reportedly was accessed during the electronic intrusion, which occurred in April.


Yet, Paytime contends in the dismissal plea it filed this week that the four people who are suing it in Jones' court have not been targets of identity theft or other crimes because of the hacking. Their mere fear that they might someday be affected by such wrongdoing isn't enough to justify a lawsuit, the firm claims.

Paytime insists that, under the U.S. Constitution, the plaintiffs would have to suffer actual, not just anticipated harm, before they could sue the firm for damages.

"While a hacker obtained entry into the Paytime system, [the] plaintiffs have not, cannot allege what the unidentified intruder read, copied or understood," Claudia D. McCarron, a lawyer representing Paytime, wrote in the dismissal plea.

The lawsuit's filers, Holly White of Lancaster, Doris Michael of New Cumberland, Daniel Storm of Lexington, Ky., and Kyle Wilkinson of Shrewsbury, claim Paytime, which is in Upper Allen Township, was negligent for not preventing the breach.

They also allege that the firm owes clients damages, because it took weeks to discover the hacking and didn't notify customers that the intruder had accessed their information until more than a month after the breach occurred. The four seek unspecified financial damages and want Jones to require Paytime to provide affected customers with credit and bank monitoring services for 25 years.

White, Michael, Storm and Wilkinson are seeking class-action status for the lawsuit to open the case to all others who were affected by the hacking.

Paytime officials have denied dragging their feet regarding detection and notification of the security breach, which they said was committed by sophisticated foreign hackers. The firm offered affected clients a free year of credit monitoring, along with identity restoration services.

Those whose personal information was accessed during the hack included employees of public libraries in Cumberland, Dauphin and York counties and workers in Silver Spring and East Pennsboro townships as well as Carlisle and Dillsburg.

In its latest court filing, Paytime also mentioned that a similar lawsuit has been filed in U.S. Eastern District Court in Pennsylvania, and it is seeking to have that case consolidated with the one being argued before Jones.

___ (c)2014 The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.) Visit The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.) at www.pennlive.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]