Gateway Rehab Data Breach: Preliminary Approval of $775K Settlement Granted in Class Action

Data Breach at Gateway Rehabilitation Center

In November 2022, the Philadelphia-based healthcare and rehab system Gateway Rehabilitation Center (“Gateway” or “Gateway Rehab”), began notifying individuals that their information was involved in a data breach that exposed individuals’ personally identifying information (“PII”) and private health information (“PHI”).

The rehab center learned that it had experienced a cybersecurity attack on June 13, 2022, and conducted an investigation following the cyberattack. Through its investigation, Gateway discovered that an unauthorized party had gained access to the company’s information systems. Through further investigation, Gateway Rehab discovered that approximately 130,000 individuals’ PII and PHI was impacted. Although the data breach occurred in June 2022, Gateway did not begin alerting impacted consumers until November 2022.

Information including full name, date of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license, financial information, health insurance information, and medical information may have been acquired by the unauthorized third party.

Preliminary Approval of the Gateway Rehab Settlement

On December 2, 2022, Shub & Johns LLC filed a class action lawsuit against Gateway Rehab for the potential impact that the data breach could have or has already had on affected individuals. On April 18, 2023, Plaintiffs in the case filed a consolidated amended complaint after the judge ordered that all remaining matters against Gateway be consolidated.

Counsel for both parties engaged in lengthy discussions, and after months of arms-length negotiations  the Parties agreed on a tentative settlement of the class action suit.

On October 3, 2024, Plaintiffs filed a motion for preliminary approval of a class action settlement, with a $775K settlement fund. On November 4, 2024, Attorneys Benjamin F. Johns and Samantha Holbrook virtually attended the Court’s hearing concerning Plaintiff’s motion for settlement in which the Court granted preliminary approval from the Bench and subsequently filed its Order for Preliminary Approval of the proposed class action settlement between Gateway and the class of impacted individuals. Pursuant to the parties’ settlement agreement, Ben Johns of Shub & Johns LLC is designated as one of the two co-lead counsel for the settlement class. Individuals impacted by the breach will be notified and have the chance to submit a claim until March 9, 2025 for participation in the class action settlement. The Court has scheduled a final approval hearing for March 10, 2025. Additional details regarding the Proposed Settlement are still to come.

The case is captioned In Re: Gateway Rehabilitation Center, Data Breach Litigation. You can read the Preliminary Approval Order here.