A Homewood woman has filed a class action lawsuit against the Franciscan Health system and an Olympia Fields-based medical group, accusing them of allowing the personal data of more than 22,000 patients to be breached when boxes of documents went missing from a storage facility.
On Dec. 9, attorney William T. Gibbs, with the firm of Corboy & Demetrio, of Chicago, filed a complaint in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of named plaintiff Kristine Condon and a class of potentially many thousands more.
The lawsuit named as defendant the Franciscan Health system, which is based in Indianapolis, but operates a number of medical facilities in Illinois, including Franciscan Health Olympia Fields hospital. Also named as defendants were Specialty Physicians of Illinois, of Olympia Fields, and others associated with Franciscan.
According to the lawsuit, a storage facility operated by the defendants in Chicago Heights was breached some time in late 2017. According to the lawsuit, Condon and others were notified of the breach by the defendants in December 2017. According to the lawsuit, as many as 40 boxes of records and documents have yet to be recovered, resulting in the potential exposure of a range of personal information for more than 22,000 patients.
According to the complaint, the records contained patient information including patient names, addresses, credit card information, bank account information and Social Security numbers.
The complaint asserts this breach has exposed the affected patients to the risk of identity theft and fraud, and has forced them to take actions to reduce that risk or mitigate actual identity theft.
The complaint alleges negligence against all of the defendants, as well as violations of the Illinois Personal Information Protection Act and the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act.
The plaintiffs have asked the court to award them unspecified damages under the law, plus attorney fees.