CASES

Blackbaud Data Breach Litigation

In re Blackbaud, Inc., Customer Data Security Breach LitigationUnited States District Court for the District of South Carolina
MDL No. 2972

Case Status

On January 14, 2021, Keller Rohrback filed its first class action complaint against Blackbaud in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. On February 10, 2021, the firm filed its second class action complaint against Blackbaud in the same district.

Other similar cases have been filed in various federal courts across the country related to the breach. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (“JPML”) ordered the centralization of these cases and transferred them to the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina for coordinated pre-trial proceedings.

On February 16, 2021, the court appointed the leadership counsel for the Blackbaud litigation. We are pleased to announce that Keller Rohrback partner Gretchen Freeman Cappio, has been appointed by Judge Childs to be chair of the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee (“PSC”). Ms. Cappio will be a part of the core group litigating this case.

On April 16, 2021, Plaintiffs filed their Consolidated Class Action Complaint.

We suggest that you periodically visit this website as it will be updated as the litigation progresses.

Case Overview

On February 7, 2020, Blackbaud, Inc.—a technology provider used by nonprofits and other organizations—was breached by a hacker. The breach went undetected until May 14, 2020, when there was a suspicious log-in on an internal server. Despite becoming aware of the attack in May, Blackbaud did not notify users of its platform about the hack until July 16, 2020. While the cybercriminals were able to remove a copy of a subset of data from Blackbaud’s self-hosted environment, the organizations who fell victim to the attack remain unsure as to what data was stolen.

Plaintiffs allege that Blackbaud failed to implement and maintain reasonable security procedures and practices to protect individuals’ and businesses’ private information against unauthorized access by third parties.

You may learn more about the specific allegations and claims being pursued by reviewing the Consolidated Class Action Complaint in the Case Documents section below.