Data Breach Case vs. Macmillan Is Amended to Add 2 More Plaintiffs

The Feb. 13 class action alleging publisher Macmillan negligently let cybercriminals infiltrate the personally identifiable information of more than 19,000 current and former employees (see 2302140045) added two named plaintiffs who are asserting harms from the June 16 data breach, said the amended complaint Monday (docket 1:23-cv-01217) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York. The original plaintiff, Victoria Batchelor, lives in Tulsa, and wasn’t notified of the breach until Dec. 1, it said. She worked for Macmillan for five years, but left the company six years ago, it said. A new second plaintiff, New York resident Diana Griffin, worked for Macmillan for two years but also left there about six years ago, and she didn’t learn about the breach until January, it said. The third plaintiff is another New Yorker, Jaime Ariza, who left Macmillan two years ago after working there 12 years, it said. Ariza also didn’t know about the breach until Macmillan notified him Dec. 1, the complaint said. Since the breach, he has suffered from “an increasing flood” of spam texts, phone calls and emails, and a fraudster tried to open a Chase bank account in his name, it said. All the plaintiffs allege they suffer from the risk of “imminent and impending injury arising from the substantially increased risk of fraud, misuse, and identity theft.”