A recent Daily Report story, “Judge Awards Enhanced Legal Fees in Home Depot Data Breach Case,” reports that a federal judge in Atlanta has awarded $7.5 million in legal fees to lawyers representing consumers in multidistrict litigation against The Home Depot over its massive 2014 data breach, saying the settlement they secured "appears to be the most comprehensive … achieved in large scale data breach litigation."

U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas Thrash issued the fee order together with a judgment finalizing a settlement that the Atlanta-based home improvement chain reached with its customers last March.  The judge said in his order that the settlement provides an estimated $27 million (including the fee award) in monetary benefits for millions of Home Depot customers whose personal and financial information had been stolen by hackers who breached Home Depot's electronic checkout systems and then made the information available on the internet black market.

The $7,536,497 legal fee award included a $1.7 million enhancement that Thrash approved, saying that the consumers' class counsel "took exceptional litigation risks in devoting the amount of time and resources which they did."  The judge also approved payment of an additional $166,925 in legal expenses and $1,000 "service award payments" to 88 plaintiffs identified as class representatives.

The fee award will be shared by Norman Siegel and Barrett J. Vahle of Stueve Siegel Hanson; David Worley and James Evangelista of Atlanta's Harris Penn Lowry; John Yanchunis Sr. of Morgan & Morgan in Tampa; and former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes and John Bevis of The Barnes Law Group in Marietta.

The judge also praised the settlement as providing more benefits for as many as 56 million class members "than the other data breach settlements the court has reviewed."  The settlement includes up to $10,000 for each class member with documented claims.  In addition to the cash pool, The Home Depot has also agreed to pay for an identity theft monitoring service for every class member (at a cost of $180 per enrollee) for 18 months, the judge said.  Home Depot has also agreed to implement and maintain "enhanced security measures" designed to detect and prevent any similar data breach from occurring again.

Thrash said the settlement "reflects an outstanding result for the class in a case with a high level of risk" and "provides significant monetary benefits to compensate consumers for out-of-pocket losses."  The benefits offered to Home Depot customers whose financial information was compromised "are particularly favorable when weighed against the risks of continuing to litigate the case," he said.

Courts presiding over similar cases, the judge added, have recognized that the legal issues associated with data breach litigation "are cutting-edge and unsettled, so that many resources would necessarily be spent litigating substantive law as well as other issues."