Preliminary Approval of $2M Settlement Granted in Lake Charles Data Breach Class Action

A Louisiana Court granted preliminary approval of a class action settlement in a data breach lawsuit against Lake Charles Memorial Health System. Individuals impacted by the breach will have the opportunity to submit a claim online via the class action settlement website.

Impacted Consumers will receive a notice regarding the settlement, and more information on how to submit a claim will become available at a later date. A final approval hearing will be held on November 3, 2025, where the Court will determine whether to finalize and move forward with the settlement.

The case is captioned Salinas v. Southwest Louisiana Hospital Ass’n, Index No. 20213-0090D, and is pending in the 14^th Judicial District Court for Calcasieu Parish.

Data Breach at Lake Charles Memorial Hospital

On December 23, 2022, the Louisiana based health organization Southwest Louisiana Health Care System, Inc., doing business as Lake Charles Memorial Health System (“Lake Charles”), 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 company learned that it had experienced a cybersecurity attack on October 21, 2022, and conducted an investigation following the cyberattack. Through its investigation, Lake Charles discovered that an unauthorized party (the Hive Ransomware group) had gained access to the company’s information systems. Through further investigation, Lake Charles discovered that 269,752 individuals were impacted by the breach, allegedly risking exposure of their PII and PHI.

Information including full name, date of birth, and address; Social Security numbers; Medical record or patient identification numbers; Health insurance information; Payment information; and Clinical information regarding care received at LCMS may have been acquired by the unauthorized third party.

Preliminary Approval of the Lake Charles Settlement

On January 5, 2023, Shub Johns & Holbrook LLP filed a class action lawsuit against Lake Charles  Health for the potential impact that the data breach could have or has already had on affected individuals. On August 21, 2023, the 14th District Court for the Parish of Calcasieu in the State of Louisiana ordered that various class action cases against Lake Charles related to the data breach were to be consolidated. The court also appointed Benjamin F. Johns of Shub Johns & Holbrook as Interim co-Lead Class Counsel in the data breach Litigation.

On May 22, 2025, following a preliminary approval hearing on the case, Judge Hope Buford issued an order granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Approval of the class action settlement, and scheduled a final approval hearing for November 3, 2025. Additional details regarding the Proposed Settlement are still to come.

Salinas v. Southwest Louisiana Hospital Ass’n, Index No. 20213-0090D. You can read the Court’s Preliminary Approval Order here.