Change is based in Nashville and the company said in its filing that the federal court there was well prepared to oversee a large, consolidated legal proceeding.
Evidence and key witnesses will be based in Tennessee, Change told the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, which weighs forum questions about lawsuits focused on the same set of facts.
In its filing, Change said the panel should put the lawsuits before U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson, who is already assigned to some of the cases filed in that court in recent weeks. Richardson, who previously worked at law firm Bass, Berry & Sims, was appointed to the trial bench in 2018.
“Centralization of these actions in a single district is imperative to prevent duplicative discovery and inconsistent pretrial rulings, and to conserve the resources of the parties and the courts,” Change’s attorneys at law firm Hogan Lovells told the judicial panel.
UnitedHealth did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Minnesota-based company has said it was focused on restoring Changes' operations.
The attack was carried out by the ransomware hacker group BlackCat. UnitedHealth disclosed the intrusion on Feb. 21 but did not indicate then how many people were affected.
The proposal for consolidation in Nashville, part of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, mirrored a request from a group of plaintiffs’ lawyers involved in the litigation. Last month, they asked the multidistrict panel to select that court.
Change’s filing on Wednesday said the lawsuits are “based on the incorrect and unfounded theory that, because a cyberattack occurred, Change’s security must have been deficient and plaintiffs must have been harmed.”
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