Legally Speaking: Suing Ashley Madison After The Hack
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – The Ashley Madison hacking scandal is already leading to lawsuits against the company.
With the names and personal information of millions of users now made public, it was inevitable that someone would sue.
But there are some challenges to bringing a case like this to court
Several lawyers representing Ashley Madison users have filed lawsuits in California, Missouri, Minnesota, Georgia, Arkansas, Texas and Tennessee.
They are all trying to bring class action suits so they can represent the more than $30 million Ashley Madison users and win millions of dollars in damages.
But, so far, Ashley Madison users in these lawsuits want to remain anonymous. They don't want the embarrassment or further fallout that could come with making their names public in court.
That could make it difficult for the case to go forward, because a court may require them to use their real names.
Also, claims of emotional distress are now coming up in these lawsuits. Many are alleging they have suffered emotional pain from being "outed" as users of the cheating website.
However, a court may not have much sympathy or see that public shame and suffering as worth giving them money for it.
Another way of going after the company is filing claims against Ashley Madison for negligence for failing to take adequate precautions against theft of their user's personal information. The law is still developing in this area, so there are no guarantees they would win there.
So what about the actual hackers of the site?
A user may have a better chance of winning a lawsuit against the hackers – if they are ever found.