Banks Ask 5th Circ. To Revive Heartland Data Breach Claims

[Erica Absetz <eabsetz () opensecurityfoundation org>]

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=26846

Megan Stride of Law360 writes that a lawsuit against Heartland Payment
Systems over their 2008 breach may not be totally dead:

A group of banks on Friday asked the Fifth Circuit to revive their
negligence claims against Heartland Payment Systems Inc. in
multidistrict litigation over a 2008 data breach, saying Heartland’s
claim that it shared a contractual relationship with the banks
shouldn’t defeat their appeal.

In their reply brief, nine credit-card-issuing banks. including
Amalgamated Bank and Lone Star National Bank NA, argue that a New
Jersey economic loss rule doesn’t bar their negligence claim against
Heartland because it only bars claims for foreseeable economic losses
when the parties are in a contractual relationship.

The payment card processor argued in its own Jan. 22 brief that it had
a contract-based relationship with the banks because all the parties
had agreed to be bound by a set of operating regulations that allowed
issuers to recover losses resulting from another participant’s
security failures. But the financial institutions say they never
negotiated or entered into a contract with Heartland.

[...]

The banks are appealing a Texas federal court’s dismissal of their New
Jersey law negligence claims against Heartland, which were part of an
MDL that also included a litigation track for consumer claims.The case
is Lone Star National Bank NA et al. v. Heartland Payment Systems
Inc., case number 12-20648, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit.

Read more on Law360 (subscription required).
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