$21 Million Settlement Resolves Data Breach Claims Against Arthur J. Gallagher
Won by Arnold Law Firm.
M. Anderson Berry of Arnold Law Firm was appointed as one of three court-appointed class counsel in a consolidated class action securing a $21 million settlement for roughly 3.5 million people whose personal and financial data was exposed in a 2020 ransomware attack on global insurance broker Arthur J. Gallagher and Co.
What happened
In the fall of 2020, Arthur J. Gallagher and Co., one of the largest insurance brokerage and risk management firms in the world, disclosed that an intruder had been inside its network for months. The ransomware attack ran from June 3 through September 26, 2020, and it reached data belonging to employees, policyholders, and other individuals the company served. Notification letters eventually went out to approximately 3,492,654 people.
The exposed records included some of the most sensitive categories of personal information: Social Security numbers, tax identification numbers, driver's license and passport numbers, dates of birth, usernames and passwords, employee identification numbers, financial account and credit card information, medical records, health insurance details, and biometric data. For the people whose information was taken, the combination posed serious and lasting identity theft risk.
Plaintiffs alleged that Gallagher failed to implement reasonable security measures and, critically, waited close to a year before informing those whose data had been compromised. Multiple lawsuits were filed across the country and consolidated before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois under Case No. 1:22-cv-00137. The complaints brought claims of negligence, breach of contract, and violations of state privacy statutes.
The court appointed M. Anderson Berry of Clayeo C. Arnold, APC (Arnold Law Firm) as class counsel for the settlement class, alongside Gary M. Klinger of Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman PLLC and John A. Yanchunis of Morgan and Morgan. The litigation team pursued both the adequacy of Gallagher's pre-breach security and the company's delayed disclosure.
In September 2024 the court granted preliminary approval of a $21 million settlement. The agreement provided class members with reimbursement for documented out-of-pocket losses up to $6,000 per person, three years of credit monitoring and identity theft protection, and a cash alternative for those who preferred it. California residents were entitled to an additional $100 payment. Final approval was granted on February 27, 2025.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Court record - Order Granting Preliminary Approval, In re Arthur J. Gallagher Data Breach Litigation, N.D. Ill. No. 1:22-cv-00137 (Doc. 117)·Archived copy
- 2.ClassAction.org - Court Preliminarily Approves $21M Arthur J. Gallagher Settlement (Sep 2024)·Archived copy
- 3.Top Class Actions - $21M Arthur J. Gallagher data breach settlement; lists Anderson Berry / Clayeo C Arnold APC as class counsel
- 4.Insurance Business Magazine - Gallagher Settles Lawsuit Over Major Data Breach·Archived copy
- 5.Official AJG Data Settlement site - In re Arthur J. Gallagher Data Breach Litigation, N.D. Ill. No. 1:22-cv-00137·Archived copy
More proven verdicts from Arnold Law Firm
All Arnold Law Firm proven verdicts →M. Anderson Berry of Arnold Law Firm was among plaintiffs' counsel in a $60 million class action settlement against Morgan Stanley Smith Barney arising from two separate failures to secure customer data on decommissioned IT equipment, affecting approximately 15 million current and former clients.
Arnold Law Firm attorney M. Anderson Berry served as plaintiffs' co-counsel in a $17.6 million class action settlement resolving claims that Kemper Corp. and subsidiary Infinity Insurance failed to protect the personal data of approximately 6.1 million customers across two separate breaches in 2020 and 2021.
Scott Ryan Eisenbrandt Jr. was killed in a collision involving a hauling company's truck shortly after its owner bought a commercial policy in 2006. His widow and parents won a California Superior Court wrongful-death judgment of $3,964,030.77 against the truck's owner, entered January 21, 2011. They then defeated the owner's insurer in federal court, which had tried to rescind the commercial policy, and the court ordered the insurer to pay the policy's face amount with interest.
Related class action verdicts
John Eddie Williams, Jr. served as one of five private attorneys retained by the State of Texas to sue the major tobacco companies, producing a $15.3 billion settlement in January 1998, the largest single-case settlement in U.S. history at the time.
As court-appointed co-lead plaintiffs' counsel in AFFF MDL 2873, Paul J. Napoli of Napoli Shkolnik negotiated a settlement requiring 3M Company to pay up to $12.5 billion to public water systems contaminated by PFAS compounds in firefighting foam, the largest drinking-water settlement in American legal history.
As court-appointed co-lead counsel in AFFF MDL 2873, Paul J. Napoli of Napoli Shkolnik helped negotiate a $1.185 billion class settlement with DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva to compensate public water systems across the United States for PFAS contamination tied to firefighting foam.