St. Louis attorney John Driscoll is taking on the Donald Trump empire in a class-action lawsuit alleging Trump's hotel chain failed to keep payment information secure, enabling data hacks of his personal and financial data.
Driscoll filed the suit Oct. 2 in the Southern District Of Illinois against Trump International Hotels Management LLC, citing negligence, breach of implied contract, and violation of state consumer protection laws and state data-breach notification laws.
According to the suit, the hotel chain acknowledged on Sept. 29 that data thieves gained unauthorized access to the plaintiff's payment-card data by hacking the computer network that accepts and processes payment-card transactions for Trump International. The data breach occurred between May 19, 2014 and June 2, 2015.
Driscoll alleges that in addition to failing to prevent the data breach, the defendant failed to take action in response to the hack and notify those affected as to the extent and nature of the data breach in a timely manner.
He is seeking relief in the form of monetary and statutory damages totaling a sum no less than $5 million. Driscoll is represented by John Hipskind of Hipskind & Mcaninch, LLC, based in Belleville.
Driscoll is a plaintiff attorney in suits against Schnucks over a major data breach that occurred between December of 2012 and ran through March of 2013. An estimated 2.4 million credit and debit cards were affected.
Hipskind chose not to comment on the case when contacted by phone.
United States District Court Southern District of Illinois Case Number: 3:15-cv-01089