Dismissing Hannaford Lawsuits, Federal Judge Tells Consumers: Show Me The (Lost) Money

Written by Evan Schuman and Fred J. Aun
May 13th, 2009
U.S.District Court Judge D. Brock Hornby on Tuesday (May 12) became thelatest jurist to rule in favor of data-breached retailers, tellingHannaford consumers that because they were compensated by their banks,they have no basis to sue civilly here.


“There is no way tovalue and recompense the time and effort that consumers spent inreconstituting their bill-paying arrangements or talking to bankrepresentatives to explain what charges were fraudulent. Those are theordinary frustrations and inconveniences that everyone confronts indaily life with or without fraud or negligence.

The class-action-lawsuit-wannabe stems from lastyear’s data breach at the grocery chain, which exposed 4.2 millioncredit and debit cards and led to 1,800 reported cases of fraud.Similar to rulings from cases fellow data-breach retail victim TJX,Hornby said he couldn’t allow almost any of the defendants to continuewith the case because the consumers hadn’t suffered out-of-pocketfinancial losses.

In an ironic sense, this all stems from thecard brands’ zero liability programs. Those programs guarantee thatconsumers will have all fraud losses wiped clean. (The one defendantwho can continue is a consumer whose fraud loss costs ”for reasonsunknown were not covered by her bank.)

In his decision (full text copy available),Hornby rejected all but one of the claims brought by 21 plaintiffsagainst the Maine-based operator of more than 200 stores in NewEngland, New York and Florida.

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