Judge Grants Johns Hopkins Defendants Motion to Stay Proceedings in MOVEit MDL

U.S. District Judge for Massachusetts Allison Burroughs granted Johns Hopkins defendants’ motion to stay proceedings in In Re: MOVEit Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, said her text-only order (docket 3083) Monday in Boston. Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Health System requested in a joint motion Friday that seven cases in the multidistrict litigation be stayed pending resolution of settlement proceedings in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Maryland. In a Jan. 3 court-ordered mediation, the parties to the circuit court actions negotiated a classwide settlement that, if approved, would resolve the claims pending against Johns Hopkins in the seven federal court cases, said the motion. That settlement was consummated March 27, and plaintiffs’ counsel in the Baltimore City cases filed an unopposed motion for preliminary approval April 4. The parties agree that the most efficient path forward is to stay the Johns Hopkins cases in the MDL pending resolution of the request for class settlement approval pending in the Baltimore City Circuit Court, it said. The stay would preserve Johns Hopkins’ ability to litigate threshold issues such as the Class Action Fairness Act and standing in the event that the circuit court doesn’t approve the settlement, the motion said. Following the resolution of the class settlement request, the parties will confer and provide the court with a proposal for the Johns Hopkins cases in the MDL. To date, 10 class actions have been filed against Johns Hopkins, seven in federal court and three in the Baltimore City court; an 11th case was recently dismissed, said the motion. The cases involve Progress Software's May 2023 data breach in MOVEit file-transfer software.