California Judge Halts Litigation Over 23andMe Data Breach

LAW.COM (Feb 29, 2024) — A federal judge in California stayed lawsuits brought over 23andMe’s data breach, despite concerns raised by some plaintiffs lawyers about the possibility of continuing privacy violations.

At a Thursday hearing, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, who is overseeing most of the 35 lawsuits against 23andMe in the Northern District of California, said he planned to wait until the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation decides whether to coordinate the cases into multidistrict litigation. The panel has scheduled the cases, which 23andMe wants transferred to California’s Northern District, for its March 28 hearing in Charleston, South Carolina.

“I’m hesitant to do a lot of substantive work without knowing what the structure of this case is going to be and what the structure of leadership is going to be,” Chen said. “Seems to me that for a one-month period, I don’t think that makes a lot of sense.” Read more here.